


The Rumor Mill

by foxxing



Category: GOT7
Genre: Actor!Jinyoung, Director/Actor AU, Explicit Sex, M/M, Mild Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rumors, Side Jinson, director!jaebum, mentions of alcohol and drug use, slight exhibitionismm, slight vouyerism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-09-27 13:44:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 132,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17163059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxxing/pseuds/foxxing
Summary: Ever since he was young, all Park Jinyoung wanted was to be a star. The next thing he wants is to be in one of critically acclaimed cult director Im Jaebum's movies––he is everything Jinyoung wants in a director; subversive, visceral, unapologetically and openly gay. But with the critical acclaim comes a well-known coldness: Im Jaebum makes his dislike known and, despite Jinyoung's success with landing a role, it seems like he's not immune to the cold front. Jinyoung must decide: stick it out for a big break, or throw it away when Im Jaebum turns out to be too much to handle?Or: one person must learn patience, the other, gentleness, and both people must learn what it means to compromise.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
> 
>   
> based on an idea by my sweet carolina  
>   
> ♡

In Park Jinyoung’s line of work, the first film role under a critically acclaimed director is absolutely make or break. 

In Jinyoung’s case, it was make. He had started out by being a backup dancer, regulated to the nearly-anonymous position of Dancer #7 in the credits of pop music videos and the occasional student-produced short film. He took on whatever projects he could alongside the work for his own performances in search of a degree. But the work was light, in college, and he was often frustrated by the lack of challenges. He wanted something hard hitting, emotional, something that could push him further than being Generically Surprised Extra #9 ever did. He wanted to shine, not fade into the background. Park Jinyoung dreamed of his name on a poster, bolded and centered like a proper lead’s would be. 

His dreams had always been so, so big. Too big to fit inside the compact of his heart. 

It wasn’t until after he had graduated in the spring that his time came: a friend from school that he had sort of known just by way of mutual friends had told him that he knew someone who knew someone who knew someone was looking for someone to look for someone to look for someone that looked like Jinyoung. Without even asking what the film was about, he took it. 

It was the first time he got speaking lines, and it was intended to be a submission for the Busan International Short Film Festival. He’d been so nervous that he spent the entire night before shooting throwing up between practicing lines to himself in a hand mirror. And despite the sleeplessness and the terror that he felt in his heart when he arrived on set, he channeled it. Jinyoung gave the lines he memorized every ounce of energy he had—when it was over, all filmed in one go, Jinyoung collapsed into the arms of the director, who had swept him up in a hug and beamed with the force of a thousand stars. 

_ You did it, Jinyoung. You’re going to go so far.  _

He was right: the short was a hit, taking home the main prize for domestic films from the festival. Jinyoung was alone for no longer than five minutes that night, constantly bombarded by people in the industry, big names and small ones, who all congratulated him on the most awe inspiring performance they’d ever seen. Later on in the night, director Lee Minho (of international acclaim, Jinyoung would relay to Yugyeom later, breathless in his disbelief) accosted him by a broom closet and begged him to come in for an audition for his new film. 

_ I think you’ll be perfect for the role, Park Jinyoung-ssi. It was practically written for you, I think. _

And it was. The film, Jinyoung’s real, first big-screen debut, was a smash hit. It launched him into stardom, and he found himself hurtled like a comet into the dangerous world of film and fame.

 

**

 

“Hyung,  _ please,”  _ Jinyoung whines, for what is most likely the hundredth time that week, and it’s only Tuesday. He hangs off his manager’s arm with little regard to the fact that he is currently trying to type an e-mail to Jinyoung’s accountant with the hand that’s attached to it. 

“Yah,” he scoffs, but it’s in that sort of endeared, tired way an older brother might. It’s the exact same sound Jinyoung’s older sisters used to make when he’d ask them for applause at the end of his living room performances just before they’d give in and clap for him. If Ok Taecyeon is anything like his sisters (he is), then he’ll give in to his whining eventually. 

Taecyeon jostles his arm where Jinyoung’s cheek is squished firmly against his bicep. “Stop whining in public, ass.”

Jinyoung rolls his eyes—they’re in the parking garage of the offices that Taecyeon works out of, which is relatively private compared to a public sidewalk, so Jinyoung thinks he’s being a bit dramatic. Plus, at this point, two years after his acting breakthrough, Jinyoung is no stranger to tabloids and paparazzi photos and internet rumors. Taecyeon seems a bit old fashioned in the sense that he acts like every camera that flashes on Jinyoung is stealing part of his soul.

Tugging his arm harder, his voice echoes against all the concrete in the underground structure when he raises it to whine louder.

“Then set up the audition!” 

Taecyeon sighs. “You’re still on this? Jinyoung, come on. You’re a good actor—“

“Do you have to say that like it’s about to be followed by an insult?” he interjects, but lets Taecyeon finish his sentence, anyway. 

“—and we know that. Everyone knows that. But Im Jaebum’s films are so hard to get auditions to if you’re not personally invited by his editor or his assistant. You know that.”

Jinyoung wants to point out that he didn’t say  _ impossible,  _ but he knows Taecyeon would either fake hit him, change the subject, make it a joke, or all three simultaneously. 

Instead, Jinyoung mirrors his sigh, only his is heavier and more defeated as he lets go of Taecyeon’s arm. It’s true—Im Jaebum is arguably one of the generation’s most acclaimed directors, and as such, his films are nearly impossible to get auditions for if not already long established in the acting world. Jinyoung tried like hell to audition for the film he made in 2016 (which coincidentally was  _ his _ breakout hit, even despite the success of his first film; it established him with immediate cult status, nearly unheard of in this day and age), but it was clear by every unanswered email that director Im Jaebum was not interested in those who weren’t already established actors. At the time, Jinyoung hadn’t even graduated, but the sting of rejection never hurt any less.

But now? Jinyoung  _ is  _ established. His role as Hwang Jinwoo in Lee Minho’s film called  _ Run, Devil  _ pushed Jinyoung to the forefront of a stage bustling with new actors desperate to break through. After the movie premiered, Jinyoung’s phone didn’t stop ringing. He was bombarded with offers, movies and shows and commercials alike. Despite the controversial nature of Jinwoo’s occupation in a gritty crime film full of death, the nation couldn’t get enough of Park Jinyoung.

Except, it seems, director Im Jaebum. 

“But hyung,” he finally says, after he and Taecyeon had been standing against the wall in the parking garage in silence for a long moment, “I  _ am  _ established. Like, I’m famous now. I’ve been in a lot of stuff, and you know how Lee Minho hyungnim feels about me. There’s no way he could say no, right?”

Taecyeon just gives him a  _ look, _ though, signaling to Jinyoung’s driver coming around the corner without looking. “He could very easily say no, Jinyoung-ah. Just because Minho directornim thinks you’re good, and I think you’re good—“

“And  _ Korea  _ thinks I’m good—“

“And Korea, yes,” Taecyeon says through a laugh. “Just because we think you’re good, Jinyoungie, doesn’t mean he will. He would eat you alive.” 

Possibly true, but that doesn’t stop Jinyoung from wanting to be in his movies. Just like when he’d been young and pretending to act on stage for his older sisters in their living room, his dreams only got bigger.  _ Prorsus et sursum,  _ a saying he learned in school went.  _ Onward and upward.  _

“We all have to take risks, hyung.”

“Are you sure that’s a risk you’d want to take? Getting knocked down a few pegs by Im Jaebum so early in your career could fuck you over in the long run, you know.” Taecyeon raises his eyebrows. “Career suicide, or whatever.”

As unfair as it feels to hear, he’s not  _ wrong.  _ Jinyoung just sighs again.

As the driver pulls up in front of them and unlocks the doors, Taecyeon seems to notice the dejected sagging of Jinyoung’s shoulders and sighs. He puts a large hand on Jinyoung’s neck just before he gets in.

“If you want the audition, Jinyoungie, I’ll try my best to get it for you.”

The world around him seems to swell; Jinyoung smiles and takes a deep breath. He’s been asking Taecyeon to do this for him for  _ weeks,  _ ever since he heard from some editors on set of his last TV appearance that Im Jaebum has a new project in the works that’s quietly casting. Seems the whining has finally broken him down and, impending rejection or no, Jinyoung is grateful. 

“Thank you, hyung.”

With a laugh, Taecyeon shoves him gently toward the open door of Jinyoung’s personal vehicle. He leans in the doorway of it, eyebrow cocked as Jinyoung buckles his seatbelt and looks at him expectantly.

“Just so you know, if I get this audition, you owe me big time.” He grabs the door and prepares to slam it shut. “This audition for a date with your sister, okay?”

Taecyeon grins. 

“Hyung, no—!”

But, it’s too late. Taecyeon has slammed the door shut on Jinyoung’s protest of  _ over my dead body will I set you up with my sister  _ and just cheerily waves at him through the window, getting smaller and smaller as the van pulls away. 

 

** 

 

Jinyoung waits. And waits. 

And  _ waits.  _

It’s agonizing: Jinyoung wouldn’t consider himself a wholly impatient person, and he thinks he’s quite reasonable beyond the occasional anxiety, but watching the hours tick by on the clock under his television waiting to hear from Taecyeon makes him feel like the whole earth is moving in slow motion.

He sags backward into the black velvet of his overstuffed couch. He shouldn’t be  _ surprised,  _ and he’s really not. Jinyoung, despite his excitement at finally breaking Taecyeon down enough to try to get him in for an audition, inherently knows that it won’t happen right away. In fact, it could take weeks to hear back, even for a rejection, depending on the casting director. But the thought makes him worry his bottom lip between his teeth anyway.

He tries to distract himself. The next morning he has a magazine photo shoot, so he really shouldn’t stay up very late anyway, and that takes some of the pressure of the impending-doom feeling of  _ waiting.  _ But the hours continue to pass by and the sun continues to settle down behind the mountains and he continues to eventually throw down every book he tries to read, frustrated by his impatience and lack of focus. Television goes similarly: Jinyoung wastes another two hours with his hand pressed on his phone and the other aimed at the TV flipping through channel after channel with the remote, until finally the sun has left to cast the living room of his high-rise apartment into darkness and he throws the remote down in defeat.

“Get a grip,” he mutters to himself, although he thinks that muttering to himself under his breath while in the privacy of his own home is contradictory by nature. Jinyoung wanders into his bedroom and, out of ideas for distractions, flops down on top of his silky sheets to call Yugyeom.

The line rings—for a moment, Jinyoung thinks he won’t answer, but then there’s finally a quiet  _ click  _ and then some muffled fumbling before Yugyeom’s voice chirps

“Hi, hyung! Sorry, I’m locking up the store right now. I didn’t want to miss your call but my hands were kind of full and then I almost dropped my phone.”

Jinyoung chuckles. “That’s okay. How was work?”

In the background he can hear Yugyeom’s heavy keys jangle loudly before he stuffs them into his pocket and sighs. “It was okay. It was kind of slow, actually. Noona wanted to cut me but I told her to cut the new barista instead since I need the money.”

“Yah, you know I’ll always lend you money when you need it, Yugyeomie.”

“I know, but I’m not gonna depend on you—yah! Watch it!” Yugyeom huffs. “Sorry, some idiot on a bike just almost hit me while I was crossing the street. But thanks, hyung. How was that interview today? What was it for again? Some blog or something?”

Finally feeling calmed, Jinyoung manages to push the thought of waiting to hear from Taecyeon just a little further back as he shifts on the bed and gets comfortable. 

“Yeah. It’s someone from University, they wanted to get me for an interview as one of their final assignments before they graduate and asked if they could post it to their blog. We had it in Taec hyung’s office so it was pretty informal, but it was nice.” Jinyoung yawns. “I have that Vogue shoot tomorrow, too.”

Yugyeom groans audibly. “Ugh, you’re so cool it makes me sick. Like, Vogue? Really?”

Jinyoung laughs. “I know, right?”

“Oh! Hang on,” Yugyeom says, his voice getting distant like he’s pulled the phone anyway from his face. There’s the muffled sound of beeping and electronic swishing, so Jinyoung thinks he must be getting ready to get on the subway to go home for the night. “Okay, sorry. I meant to ask, hyung. Did you have any luck asking Taecyeon hyung about getting you that audition?”

Dammit. Seems like he’s not going to escape thinking about it, after all.

He’s not surprised he asked, though. Yugyeom, being Jinyoung’s best friend, has had to listen to him lament for  _ years  _ about wanting to be in one of Jaebum’s movies. He had to listen to Jinyoung break down and cry when he never heard back the first time he reached out to audition, and little has changed; Yugyeom has also been listening to Jinyoung whine for weeks.  _ Taecyeon hyung is just being so god damn stubborn about it. He thinks he’s going to say no right away!  _

He realizes that he’s already feeling dejected about a rejection despite there being no indication of the sort, but all the waiting and the build up and the combined history of Im Jaebum’s notoriety and Jinyoung’s previous rejection has made him a little stir crazy. 

“He actually agreed to it, for a change,” Jinyoung says, and has to raise his voice a little over Yugyeom’s theatrical gasp of excitement,  _ “BUT,  _ I haven’t heard anything back, yet. I have a feeling he’s going to reject me again.”

“These things don’t happen right away though, do they?” Yugyeom asks. He waits for the overhead system in the subway station to stop blaring an announcement before he continues, “so maybe give it a week or two.”

Jinyoung sighs. “I don’t  _ want  _ to wait a week or two.”

Yugyeom laughs. “I know, hyung. Just be patient. Hey, listen, I’m gonna go meet Hyunwoo hyung right now. Do you wanna come? Maybe it’ll take your mind off of it.”

He looks at the simple, matte black watch on his left wrist. 10:47pm. If he doesn’t want to be exhausted for his Vogue shoot in the morning, it’s best if he resists the temptation. 

“I’m okay, Gyeomie. I have that shoot in the morning so I’ll probably just go to bed right now.”

“Jeez, try not to stress so much, hyung. You’re starting to stress  _ me  _ out about it.” He pauses; muffled in the distance, Jinyoung can hear the train coming. “Take a bath or something and relax, huh? Don’t you still have those bath bombs I gave you a couple months ago? You should use one and tell me if you like them so I can tell my mom. She’s obsessed with buying you those for some reason.”

He smiles. Yugyeom’s mom has been buying little presents for Jinyoung ever since they met in high school, and the fame hasn’t stopped her one bit. 

“Good idea. I’ll let you know. Tell Hyunwoo hyung I said hi.”

“Copy that. Bye, hyung!” 

When Jinyoung hangs up, his bedroom feels marginally emptier, despite Yugyeom not being physically present. He sighs—it’s so late that he could just go straight to bed, but Yugyeom’s idea of taking a bath doesn’t sound so bad, so Jinyoung leaves his phone on the bed and heads to the bathroom. 

In alliance with his gloomy mood, he leaves the main lights off and instead lights some candles on the porcelain counter and the staggered shelves on the wall across from the bathtub, which is a beautiful, claw-footed, stand alone masterpiece. Jinyoung wouldn’t consider himself as overly frivolous by nature but when he got the money to buy his first apartment, the first thing he told Taecyeon to do was remodel the bathroom into the dark, romantic oasis that he’s always wanted. 

When Jinyoung finally drops his clothes to the hardwood just outside the bathroom door and then sinks down into the water, the steam has fogged the mirrors over the sink and warmed the air into a humid, cozy blanket. Soft music plays from a tiny vintage radio on one of the shelves, a present from his sisters after he had gotten his first audition post-graduation. Finally,  _ finally,  _ the unwelcome stress of Taecyeon actually agreeing to try and get him an audition with elusive Im Jaebum starts to melt away. 

He hums along to the songs that play under his breath and relaxes down into the water. It comes up over his ears, his nose barely hovering above the surface and everything washed out to a distance hum underneath the steady  _ thump, thump  _ of his heart as the sound carries through the hot water. He spends quite a long time like this, in this almost dream-like state, suspended between asleep and awake as his amplified heartbeat lulls him into calm. 

An hour passes before he realizes it: under the water, he hears the gentle  _ bong, bong _ of the grandfather clock in his living room (also vintage and also a gift from his sisters). He sits up out of the water to listen to all twelve. 

“Midnight, already?” he says, and is not surprised when the water has gone quite tepid. “Jeez—“

While the suggested bath calmed him down and erased the stress he’d been feeling, it comes rushing back when, following the clock, there’s the tell-tale pounding of a fist on his front door. 

He waits; a moment of silence passes before the banging resumes.

“What the hell?” he mutters, dread sinking his heart to his stomach. The water rushes loudly away from his body as he stands, quickly stepping from the tub and grabbing his heavy bathrobe off the back of the door. He doesn’t bother dressing, instead cinching it tight around his waist and pulling the shoulders closed as he pads quietly to the door and nervously edges it open.

_ “Finally,”  _ Taecyeon groans, and at the familiar sound of his voice, Jinyoung swings the door open all the way in surprise. “I have been trying to get a hold of you for like, over an hour.”

“Hyung? What the hell—“

Taecyeon impatiently levels him with a look. “You know, being famous and all, you should probably stop abandoning your phone so much.”

Jinyoung makes a face and pulls his robe tighter. “What’s so important you had to come bang on my door at almost one in the morning?”

The impatience melts into a grin; Jinyoung instinctively wants to step back, feeling suspicious.

“That look is creepy. Stop that. What is it?”

“If you’d answer your phone, you would have known an hour ago.” Taecyeon brandishes a heavy stack of papers from behind his back with small, bolded print across the front and holds them out. “This.  _ This  _ is what was so important, Jinyoungie.”

The bolded print, centered, is the only thing on the front page. It reads:

 

**BLACK DOG  
** **A FILM BY IM JAEBUM**

 

Jinyoung can’t do anything but stare at the letters like they don’t make sense. Black Dog? A film by Im Jaebum? A giant stack of papers? Jinyoung’s heart starts to come alive. 

“That looks like a script,” Jinyoung breathes. He looks away from it, into Taecyeon’s face, which is beaming with a smile. “Why does this look like a script?” 

“Because it is.” 

Jinyoung’s heart flutters harder. “Why—why do you have a script?”

Taecyeon laughs. “Because, you birdbrain, it’s  _ yours.”  _ there’s a moment of silence between them, Taecyeon staring at Jinyoung staring at the script. “I did it, Jinyoung. I got you the audition.”

He can’t even believe it. He had been nearly pacing all day with anticipation, resigning himself at the final moment to the fact that working with Im Jaebum was a dream that was just much too far out of reach for him, if only at this stage in his career. Taecyeon’s reluctance had seeped into his self confidence and made him question if he was good enough, or if he’d be rejected again, someone not quite interesting enough to bring one of Im Jaebum’s famous stories to life. He had resigned himself to weeks of waiting for a rejection. And yet here Taecyeon stands, in his doorway at nearly one o'clock in the morning brandishing a freshly printed script like a holy grail.

_ Prorsus et sursum.  _

“Hyung,” Jinyoung says, still in disbelief even as he gently runs his fingertips across the type on the front page. He wonders distantly if Jaebum had been the one to print it. “I don’t know what to say—“

“‘Thank you’ would work,” Taecyeon jokes, and wiggles the script a bit. The heavy stack of paper makes little more than a rustling noise as they bend. “But later. Your audition is at 9am, so you better get to reading.”

Shock drops a cold water feeling over Jinyoung’s head.  _ “What?” _

“Yes, your audition is at 9am, and it’s currently—“ he looks at his watch, “12:24am. I will be here at 8am on the dot to pick you up, so you better be ready. Dress to impress, although I’d suggest maybe dressing the way you think the character would dress. Sound good?”

“Hyung,” Jinyoung says, grabbing Taecyeon’s free wrist in a panic. “Wait, 9am? Tomorrow?”

“Today, really,” he corrects, but it goes unnoticed. 

“I can’t—oh, god, I have to audition so soon? I don’t think I’m ready, hyung. I’m not ready—“

“YAH,” Taecyeon says loudly, and interrupts Jinyoung’s snowballing panic. He puts his one free hand on Jinyoung’s cheek to get him to focus and look him in the eyes. “Relax. You’ve done this before. It’s going to be difficult, but just read the script. Okay? Read the script, get a feel for the character, and then go knock it out of the park.”

Jinyoung’s chest is so tight he feels breathless. “I hate baseball analogies.”

Taecyeon just laughs. He pulls away, urging Jinyoung to take the script, which is heavy and solid in his hands. 

“You got this, Jinyoung. I know you do.”

He swallows. He stares at the minimalist front of the script and tries to take a deep breath between all the crazy, disbelieving thoughts crashing together in his head like a ten car pileup. “Thank you, hyung.” 

His manager slaps the doorway once, gearing up for a farewell. “Remember,” he says, taking off his hat to fix his hair before firmly shoving it back down and leveling Jinyoung with a stern look fit for the military: “8am. I will be here at 8am sharp so we get to the studio at no later than 8:30. You got that?” 

Jinyoung nods, albeit a little dreamily. “Yes. I’ll be downstairs, but call me when you’re on your way, anyway, just to make sure.”

“You got it. Breathe, Jinyoung,” he says softly, laughing a little when Jinyoung takes a long, deep inhale. “Good. Now, read as much as you can and try to sleep at least a little.”

“Wait, what about my Vogue shoot?” he asks, although truthfully he would have forgotten it in favor of reliving this moment over and over again. Alas, Jinyoung is a professional and thinking about the shoot scheduled for the morning makes him queasy.

“Canceled it. Told them you had a very important audition to attend that was last minute, and they said if you can find time they’ll reschedule.” Taecyeon reaches in to grab the door handle near Jinyoung’s hip and looks at him with a grin. “Go. Get to reading, actor Park.”

When Taecyeon closes the door and shuts him up in the quiet of his apartment, Jinyoung can do little else for a long moment but stare at the script in his hands.  _ Weeks,  _ they’d both said. It could take weeks. It had taken him weeks to convince Taecyeon to try to get him in for an audition, anyway, and yet he’d shown up the very same day with a fresh script in his hands and a strict schedule of a 9am audition. The dream he had resigned to himself as too big was unfurling before his eyes like a midnight flower.

Jinyoung traces the typed letters of  **IM JAEBUM** underneath the film’s title in wonder. 

_ Please,  _ he thinks desperately, to whoever or whatever might be listening.  _ Please let this go well. _

Jinyoung clutches the script tightly to his chest and retires to his room, settles on the bed, and begins to read.

 

**  
  


_ Vrrrbt.  _

Jinyoung, still asleep, sighs restlessly and shifts on his bed.

_ Vrrrbt.  _

_ Vrrrbt. _

Annoyed by whatever in his bed is vibrating him awake, he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to ignore it. He turns slightly to his side; the muffled sound of crinkling papers underneath his thighs barely registers as the nuisance continues to irritate.

_ Vrrrbt. Vrrrbt. Vbrrrt. _

“Ugh,” Jinyoung groans, and finally opens his eyes. He blinks a few times into the soft morning light, the sun still quite low on the horizon due to the impending winter. Gold light filters in gently through the curtains and illuminates him where he lays curled on his bed, dressed only in boxers and a bathrobe on top of a mess of papers coming loose from a stack.

_ Papers—?  _ Jinyoung thinks in confusion, not fully awake yet. He moves his leg as he blindly reaches for his phone to turn off the alarm when two epiphanies hit him at once. 

The first: that’s not an alarm. It’s Taecyeon, calling him, the picture of their faces squished together glaring at him as the call goes unanswered and another starts up right after. 

The second is that the papers he’s been laying all over and crumpling is the script to Im Jaebum’s movie.

That he has an audition for. 

_ Today.  _

Panic swells in his chest like rapid water inside a balloon. He gasps and grabs his phone, not even looking at the time as he swipes to answer and launches himself off the bed to dig through his closet. 

Taecyeon answers right away. “Finally, Jinyoung—“

“Oh, my god, hyung, I’m so sorry,” he says. the words all coming out in a rush as he paws frantically through his closet. “I didn’t even set an alarm last night, I fell asleep reading, god, hyung, are we going to be late?  _ Fuck, _ what a terrible first impression—“

“Jinyoung—“

But Jinyoung doesn’t stop. He balances the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he yanks a leopard print shirt forcefully from a hanger, hard enough to rip it. The material holds and he drops his robe to slide it on. “I have a feeling he already doesn’t like me, you know? And now I’m late to my first audition. He’s never going to cast me—“

Taecyeon tries again:  _ “Jinyoung—“ _

“Shit! Hyung, I’m sure it doesn’t look good for you either. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you look like a bad manager—“ Jinyoung pauses long enough to set the phone down as he yanks on a pair of tight black jeans and grabs the phone. “Like, they’re going to think you’re incompetent, and—“

“SHUT UP. JINYOUNG,” Taecyeon nearly shouts. Jinyoung stills in his closest where he’d been pulling down a fashionably tattered denim jacket and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Satisfied that he won’t interrupt, Taecyeon continues,

“Jesus.  _ Finally.  _ Relax, okay? I knew this was going to happen. It’s not even 7:30am yet.”

Bewildered, Jinyoung pulls his smartphone away from his face long enough to see that, indeed, it’s barely 7:20am. He puts the phone back to his ear as he tugs on the denim jacket.

“A bit rude of a way to wake a guy up who has an important audition, huh?”

Taecyeon makes a noise that Jinyoung is sure accompanies a mocking face. “Whatever. You’re up, aren’t you? Oh, and thanks, by the way, for saying I’m incompetent—!”

Initial rushing shock finally starting to calm itself down, Jinyoung laughs. “I didn’t say you were incompetent, hyung. It was just implied.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Says the person who woke me up at 7:30am and didn’t tell me that we weren’t late right away.” 

His manager scoffs into the phone. “Ha! I tried! But you were off and ranting before I could say anything, you idiot.”

Jinyoung grins as he digs through his sock drawer to pull out a simple, navy pair to go on under his jeans. “Incompetent  _ and  _ verbally abusive? The gossip blogs will love that one, hyung.” 

“Shut up. You wouldn’t dare. Who else would put up with you?”

“Hmm. You’re right.”

“I know,” Taecyeon sighs, wistfully like he wishes he had another job. Jinyoung snorts. “I’m also here, so feel free to come down at any time.”

Jinyoung, finally completely dressed, turns to look at the mess he’s made of the script on his bed. Crumpled papers slide off the stack and to the floor where they’ve been spread along the soft covers by his restless, sleeping body. The thought of arriving with a script so beat up and uncared for makes Jinyoung’s stomach hurt: it’s all about first impressions today.

He’s finally meeting director Im Jaebum in person today, and he is  _ desperate  _ for it to go well. 

With a sigh, Jinyoung heads to his bathroom go wash up before heading downstairs. Taecyeon stays on the line for moral support as Jinyoung aggressively brushes his teeth and tries to calm the anxious  _ thump, thump _ of his heavy heart. 

“Hyung,” he says, slipping into his shoes by the front door, “you… wouldn’t have to have an extra copy of the script, would you?”

Taecyeon snorts. “Why? Did you lose yours already?”

It’s Jinyoung’s turn to make a noise and a mocking face despite Taecyeon not being able to see it. He doesn’t reply right away, locking his door and making a beeline for the elevator.

Once inside, he sighs. “No, but—“

“You fell asleep on it. Didn’t you?”

Jinyoung hates that Taecyeon can  _ read  _ him so easily. It’s like Taecyeon knows him inside and out, more so than the fan pages about himself seem to, and it honestly sort of worries him. Could his manager be a sasaeng? Is that even possible? He steps out of the elevator and quickly makes his way outside to the sidewalk where he pulls open the car door and hangs up the phone.

Taecyeon throws him a grin. His hair is pushed back under a backward hat again, thick hoodie looking considerably warmer than Jinyoung’s measly denim jacket.

“It’s scary how well you know me,” he says, still standing on the passenger side before hopping in.

Taecyeon laughs as he slides in, the top half of him disappearing into the back as he struggles to reach something on the seat behind Jinyoung. He reemerges with a script, nice and crisp and cold from sitting in the car. 

“I asked for two, since I knew you were going to fall asleep on the other one.”

Jinyoung places the newly printed script in his lap and tries not to gush. He knows Taecyeon knows he’s grateful, but he wishes he could show it better. 

“You really _do_ know me so well it’s scary.”

He grins and pulls out into traffic. “I’d like to think so, but that outfit makes me really reconsider.”

Offended, Jinyoung scoffs and pulls at the lapels of the denim jacket and looks down at himself in disbelief before turning a glare on the side of Taecyeon’s head. 

“What’s wrong with this outfit?!”

“It’s so—I don’t know. Maybe it’s the shirt. It looks tacky.”

Jinyoung throws himself against the seat with a pouty huff, enough to make Taecyeon burst into more laughter as his arms cross.

“It’s not  _ tacky.  _ I’m  _ method acting.” _

This apparently just makes it funnier—Taecyeon honks and slaps the steering wheel once. “You don’t even have the part yet!”

“Your faith in me is astounding,” he deadpans. 

“Give what you get, huh?” Taecyeon says. They grin at each other and then the car lapses into a comfortable silence. 

In it, Jinyoung’s mind starts to turn, the anxiety rushing back in like a yanked on faucet. All night he’d been up reading Jaebum’s script—something dark, gritty, hard hitting and emotional. It’s Jinyoung’s favorite kind of role, but he starts to wonder if he can really emulate the kind of character that Im Jaebum had written for the story. It’s a story of loss, of grief, of corruption; it’s a story of hate and healing, and the twisted love that blossoms like a crown of thorns along the way. He’s suddenly not so sure that he has the ability to portray a character so deeply emotional.

Taecyeon seems to notice this and elbows his arm gently. “Hey. You nervous?”

Jinyoung nods. “Yeah. Yeah, hyung.”

“It's a really serious role. I know you can do it, and I know you’ll kick ass at it, but try not to be discouraged if he doesn’t like you.”

This only serves to make his nerves worse. and he curls and uncurls his fingers around the edges of the thick script sitting heavily in his lap. He bites his lips nervously and watches the scenery pass in silence for a moment, getting closer and closer to the studio with every minute that passes. 

“He doesn’t really like anyone, does he?” Jinyoung tries to joke, but it comes out a little strangled, and hidden inside the failed jest are all of his insecurities. He turns his face away toward the window. 

Taecyeon, to his credit, pretends not to notice the slight anxious waiver of Jinyoung’s voice. They arrive on the lot and wait in a short line of cars at the gate: Jinyoung stretches up to try and see if he can see anything, but the high walls and dull, cookie cutter brick buildings of the different indoor sets give him little to look at. He settles back in his seat as Taecyeon pulls up to the guard booth and has a small conversation with the attendant that Jinyoung mostly tunes out. 

At the front, now, he can see a little more of the studio grounds. Down the main road that splits the lot down the middle, he can see where the road starts to curve at the end and likely leads to more of their outdoor sets. Lining both sides are the grey concrete squares of indoor studios, big signs plastered in uniform next to the doors with the name of the film and the particular set written on them. Jinyoung tries to find the ones for Black Dog, but he can’t see anything from the car. 

Finally, Taecyeon rolls up the window and drives into the lot. He turns down a small side street, more like an alley way than a road meant for cars as big as Jinyoung’s that eventually opens up into a tiny cul de sac. At the end of it is a small, similar grey brick building. but the metal lettering above the double glass doors just reads AUDITORIUM.

“To answer your question,” Taecyeon says softly, which nearly startles him as he parks the car and lets it idle for a moment. “No, I don’t think he does.”

Jinyoung takes a nervous deep breath. “Great.” 

“Just do your best.” Taecyeon unlocks the doors and puts a hand on Jinyoung’s shoulder. “Go in, do your best. I’ll be waiting out here for you when it’s over, okay?”

_ This is it. This is it. This is it.  _

He swallows. “Okay.” 

The car pulls away as he goes inside. He steps into a dull, uninteresting lobby: it looks more like a converted high school auditorium than anything a fancy movie studio could have built, although part of him wonders if that serves a dual purpose. The carpet is an ugly clay color and too long—not quite flat and not quite shag, an awful combination that radiates a vintage energy like the dim overheads that illuminate everything in a sort of sickly hue. 

Jinyoung clutches the script to his chest and tries not to look awkward or out of place despite it being exactly how he feels. The crappy lobby is bustling with guys around his age and similar in looks to himself, with a few odd men out in terms of hair color and features. Plastic chairs have been set up to line the brick walls and set up in some semblance of order like a waiting room, although the groups of actors that know each other have mostly disassembled it and made a mess of chairs and cliques. He wants to find a place to sit so he can continue to read the script again and try to gauge what scene he might have to read, but it looks like all the chairs are full, and he’s feeling much too self conscious to pick his way through the crowd to try and find the rare empty one. 

Instead, Jinyoung finds an empty patch of hideous carpet and folds himself up small to avoid excessive attention. It’s baffling how many of these actors he doesn’t know; he would have thought the pool would be smaller, since Im Jaebum had proved to be picky and particular. But the small lobby is alive with the dull roar of men’s voices and intermittent laughter. 

The hours wind down as he sits alone and reads. Jinyoung tunes out the noise of names getting called and the room emptying as actors go into the auditorium through the large, double oak doors in the wall directly across from the glass ones of the entrance, and again as they come out and disappear out of the building entirely. Every so often he’ll look up to see how the crowd is thinning, and every time it looks smaller and his name hasn’t been called, his chest tightens more and more with a quiet anxiety that he won’t be called at all. 

_ Jaewon.  _ That’s the name of his (hopefully) character. A college dropout with a chip on his shoulder and a feverish desire to find out what happened to his older brother when he gets a call that he’s been killed in jail. Taecyeon hadn’t been kidding when he said the role was serious and, despite Jinyoung’s previous experience in a serious crime film, that diminishing self worth shows up again and whispers into his ear that, this time, it might be a little out of his league. 

He closes his eyes and puts the script to his forehead.  _ Shut up,  _ he begs the voice.  _ Please, just shut up. _

Suddenly, when he puts the script back down, the room is completely empty. The sun had lowered from the highest position in the sky and has started climbing down the opposite side of it, the high blue of the morning tempered down into softness. Mid-afternoon light starts to cast the lobby in a hazy yellow that draws out the shadows of the chairs like long ghosts. He tries to remember the last time he heard someone’s name get called and can’t. His heart, nervous bird that it is, wonders if he’d maybe been forgotten, after all.

But just as he stands up and brushes imaginary dust off the back of his tight jeans, one of the oak doors swings open with a low groan. A tall, impossibly skinny boy in the loudest outfit he’s ever seen pushes an earpiece back and points his clipboard in Jinyoung’s direction. 

“Park Jinyoung?”

_ It’s showtime.  _

His heart thumps. Thumps. Thumps. He swallows.

“Yes, that’s me.”

The PA laughs like Jinyoung just told the best joke he’s ever heard. It just makes him feel more nervous. When he hesitates by the wall, the PA waves him in quickly with the clipboard. 

“I know who you are, Mr. Park. Come on in, you’re the last audition of the day.”

_ I’m not ready. hyung,  _ is what he’d told Taecyeon last night when he’d been handed the script he’d been seeing in his dreams for years, and it feels more true than ever as he follows the PA down a short, nearly pitch black hallway toward an auditorium. A burst of chatter splits the silence between them and the PA quickly turns the walkie off before stopping at the end of the walkway and grinning at him. 

“Just go to those stairs, there,” he whispers, and uses the metal part of the clipboard to point at a small staircase on the side of a stage barely large enough for a group of people to stand on. It must be an auditorium solely for auditions, then, since there’s no way they’d ever be able to film something on a stage so tiny. “And go up onto the stage. Director Im will direct you from there.”

_ Director Im.  _ Jinyoung hesitates for a moment, letting the words sink in.  _ Director Im will direct you from there.  _ Im Jaebum is in the same room as him, sitting on the other side of the thin wall that makes up the hallway of the auditorium. Im Jaebum, Jinyoung’s biggest dream, sitting feet away from him. 

His hands start to shake.

The PA gently places a hand on his back and urges him on. “Go on, Mr. Park. It’s okay. He’s waiting for you.” 

With a deep breath, Jinyoung straightens his shoulders and walks with a swagger he’s not sure he’s really radiating to the stairs and up onto the stage. The lights are so bright that, at first, he can’t see anything: he squints and blinks into the hot, white light in the direction that he assumes the seats are in and tries not to let the thundering of his heartbeat drown him. 

“Hello,” a voice says—but it’s not Jaebum’s. Jinyoung has watched plenty of his interviews to know the difference, so he thinks it must be someone else. “I’m Mark Tuan. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Jinyoung blinks into the light. He’s starting to adjust, now, and no longer has to squint, but the three people sitting in the fold down chairs of the auditorium are still little more than shadows. 

He swallows nervously. “Thanks. I’m—“

“Park Jinyoung,” Mark’s voice supplies, and he sounds genuinely happy, which calms the rubbed-rawness of Jinyoung’s nerves  _ just _ a fraction. “Trust me, I know. It’s amazing finally meeting you in person. Are you nervous?”

He laughs; he hopes it doesn’t sound as awkward and delirious as he thinks it does. He pulls his lips between his teeth before smiling and rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Yes.” 

Mark laughs. And just like that, the overhead lights dim, and Jinyoung sees the three of them clearly for the very first time.

His eyes fall on the man in the middle, staring at him with the all the stoic coldness of an introvert. Jinyoung realizes with a shock that precedes a swallowed gasp that this is Jaebum—this is  _ Im Jaebum,  _ sitting in the front fucking row of a tiny auditorium maybe twelve feet away from him at most. His breath catches as their eyes meet under the dimmed lights and his heart stutters  _ one, one two  _ in his chest. 

He’s even more handsome in person. Tragically so, almost. Brassy circle frames have slid to the end of his long nose, which he looks at Jinyoung down the length of when he tips his head back a little bit to look up at him where he’s standing awkwardly on the tiny stage with the script clutched in his hand. His dark hair is quite messy on the top and shaved quite short on the sides in the perfect imitation of an artist—he looks ever more intimidating and handsome and awe inducing that Jinyoung could have ever imagined. His dream, that midnight flower, unfurls even further in his heart as Jaebum’s eyes stay laser focused on him and refuse to budge. 

He can’t help it—he blurts out, “it's so nice to finally meet you,” in Jaebum’s direction and immediately bites his lips. 

Mark, on Jaebum’s left, giggles in time with the gorgeous female on Jaebum’s other side. They share a glance across the stillness of Jaebum’s body at Jinyoung’s expense; he notices, and his heart drops. Jaebum hasn’t moved since he’d stepped out onto the stage, and the look on his face hasn’t changed. Neither have the dark eyes that bore into Jinyoung’s until one eyebrow cocks, just slightly. 

Silence follows. Painful, awkward, devastating silence. 

_ Great,  _ Jinyoung thinks to himself, shoulders dropping a bit as he deflates in premature misery.  _ I managed to fuck this up already. _

Jaebum's deep voice suddenly breaks the silence, though, and it would startle him if he wasn’t feeling so disappointed at Jaebum’s lack of reaction to meeting him. He didn’t expect Jaebum to be falling all over himself about it, but he didn’t expect the icy cold front, either. Jinyoung can’t help but feel majorly disappointed despite knowing Taecyeon’s  _ don’t be surprised if he doesn’t like you  _ had proved to be true before he even started reading.

“What part do you want to read?”

Slightly caught off guard, Jinyoung leans forward a bit like he can’t hear. “Pardon?”

“I asked what part you wanted to read.”

The tiny auditorium is dead silent, empty save for the five of them, and Jaebum’s confident commands seem to echo slightly before they disappear. Jinyoung looks at the script in his hand and then back at Jaebum, who is  _ still  _ looking at him with those cold shark’s eyes. 

“From—from here?” he shakes the script a little like he’s confused himself. If he wasn’t already so nervous he could die, he might have reddened in the face. 

The PA, sitting in the back, snorts.

Jaebum doesn’t nod. “Yes.” 

He isn’t sure that to think. Normally at auditions, he’s instructed on what to read, and what emotions he’s supposed to showcase for the director. He should have guessed that Im Jaebum isn’t traditional, but he  _ really  _ hadn’t prepared for this. 

He shifts awkwardly on his feet and begins to sweat, just a little. He’s not sure if it’s because of the lights or because of Jaebum’s stare. Probably both. Jaebum, blinking slowly, raises his eyebrows expectantly. 

Yeah.  _ Definitely  _ because of Im Jaebum.

At risk of sounding stupid, Jinyoung clears his throat. “Whatever part you think is best, directornim,” he says, politely.

Jaebum doesn’t say anything for a moment; the theatre falls into an almost unsettling hush as the weight of his dark eyes puts more and more pressure onto Jinyoung’s chest. He had seemed intense in some of his interviews, very no nonsense and blunt edged, the type to shut a reporter out for getting off topic or just walking out if it got too personal. But Jinyoung hasn’t expected  _ this  _ much intensity, the kind that makes Jinyoung feel like a butterfly pinned to a discovery board. The anxiety ramps up another notch in his chest as Jaebum finally looks away and shuffles through the various papers on his lap with a pen dancing absently between the fingers of his left hand. 

“Fine,” he says, mostly sounding disinterested, and looks at Jinyoung again. He pushes some papers into a different order and grips the pen like he’s prepared to write. “I’d like you to read the part where Jaewon confronts En Lai in the police station about what he knows about his brother.”

He remembers the scene vividly: in fact, it’s one of the ones he had memorized in hopes of it being the chosen scene. It’s heavy hitting and emotional, a true test of the extent of Jinyoung’s skills as he has to shout and cry to portray a painful betrayal. Jinyoung gently sets his script on the floor by his shoes and steps away from it with his eyes closed. A million anxious things fly through his head as he digs himself deep into Jaewon’s character. 

He draws up from the well of his emotions, letting it fill him like an empty bucket, until his chest is so tight that it hurts. Mark, still sitting in the audience seats, reads off En Lai’s part of the script for him. The scene takes place in Jinyoung’s mind as the words flow out of him, imaginary trinkets swiped off an imaginary desk as rage turns his voice to a scraping sob.  _ You knew everything and you didn’t tell me?  _ Jinyoung seethes, cheeks wet, glaring into the light and letting the emotion burn him up from the inside.  _ You knew everything about Jaesung hyung, En Lai, and you didn’t think to tell me? Why? Why? _

It feels like it goes on for forever, but it’s probably only ten minutes. Despite being deep in concentration to remember his lines and to really channel the emotion the scene requires, he can still see the look of surprise on Mark’s face as he reads for Jinyoung’s co-star. Mark doesn’t deliver it quite like an actor would, but Jinyoung can still hear the slight waver in his voice as they call the scene to end. Immediately after Mark is twisting in his seat to wave the skinny PA over and whisper in his ear. 

Jinyoung, a little exhausted, goes quiet and sways slightly in place. He doesn’t bother wiping the tears off his cheeks; the scratchy denim of his jacket would only irritate his already flushed skin and by the way that Im Jaebum is staring at him right now with a face devoid of any telling emotion, he doesn’t want to make his fate worse. 

The silence that ensues is the worst part. Everyone else in the room seems used to it, as if the silence that Jaebum surrounds himself in like an invisible wall is just another part of another normal day. Mark has gotten out of his seat and followed the PA through a door on the other side of the auditorium, and the gorgeous woman sitting on Jaebum’s other side merely pats his unmoving arm before disappearing after them. The door closes with a quiet  _ snick  _ that seems to echo in the emptiness between himself and Jaebum, who have been left to stare each other down, alone. 

Jinyoung’s heart hammers nervously. He shifts a bit uncomfortably on his feet, not very shy by nature but starting to feel that way under the weight of Jaebum’s stare. The director has still yet to say anything—he just keeps  _ looking,  _ those sharp, dark eyes drilling a hole into various parts of Jinyoung’s body. His chest, his neck, his face. Almost like he’s trying to memorize the shape of him. Shame, or something like it, starts to prickle at the hair on Jinyoung’s neck and raises it on his arms beneath his clothes as Jaebum continues to stare at him in a heavy, insufferable silence. 

Finally. though, after a five minute staring contest, Jaebum looks away. The anxiety ramps up in Jinyoung’s stomach, cramping it, that Jaebum will tell him right here and now that he got the part, but Jaebum just reshuffles his papers into a neater pile before standing up. 

He glances at Jinyoung, eyebrow cocked like he’d almost forgotten he’d been standing there. The look says,  _ you’re still here? _

“Thank you,” Jaebum says, accompanied by little more than a small nod. He looks away just as quickly as he’d looked the first time and then, without saying anything else, disappears from the auditorium door to leave Jinyoung alone. 

For a moment there’s nothing but confusion. Had he done something wrong? Mark seemed impressed by his performance. He didn’t pay much attention to the woman, or even to Jaebum, so lost in the moment of the scene that he had trained himself to forget they were there. Mark had seemed quietly surprised at Jinyoung’s intensity but—Jaebum? Jaebum, in the end, looked like he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. 

With a defeated sigh, the ship of Jinyoung’s heart dashes against the rocks and sinks to the pit of his stomach where it stays as he makes his way miserably back out of the auditorium. 

On the curb, he stands with his arms crossed to wait for Taecyeon to pull up and tries not to cry. It feels silly to be so upset about not doing as well as he thought in an audition—there’s plenty of drama roles he really wanted and didn’t get, but he never  _ cried  _ over those. He never worried his bottom lip between his teeth until it hurt because he was so ashamed that he felt  _ this close  _ to bursting into tears. Jinyoung has had directors look straight into his face and tell him he wasn’t right for the role, and those interactions always ended up a handshake and a friendly smile, sometimes on top of promises that if a story came up that was perfect for him, he’d be the first one to call. Surely Im Jaebum’s movie isn’t so different from the rest that his audition could be seen as  _ bad,  _ right?

He sighs, heart heavy. Maybe his dream had been too big, after all. 

Taecyeon pulls up in the SUV a few minutes later. Jinyoung is endlessly grateful that he’d finally showed up, as now he can go home and bury himself in his bed for a day and grieve over not getting into the film of his dreams.  _ There’s always next time,  _ he can imagine Taecyeon saying to him, but he’s not sure there will be one, and he’s not sure that he wants to hear that right now, anyway. By the way that Jaebum just stared at him and then up and left after his audition was over, Jinyoung thinks that maybe Im Jaebum just doesn’t want to work with him at all. Established actor or not. 

Jinyoung yanks the door open and roughly pulls himself in before slamming the door. 

Taecyeon says his name in a loud gasp. “JINYOUNG—“

But he’s too ashamed to look at him. “It didn’t go well,” he mumbles, buckling his seatbelt. Strangely, he feels as though he has disappointed Taecyeon, too, by not doing well, and it makes it hard to face him. “He hated—“

“Shut  _ up,”  _ Taecyeon says, almost frantically, and the tone of his voice makes Jinyoung look up in surprise. “You’ll never guess—“

He’s practically  _ beaming _ , which in of itself is weird and looks sort of unsettling. Jinyoung, who has been in the car for less than thirty seconds and has yet to hear Taecyeon’s voice beyond his (frankly, quite rude) greeting of _shut up_ , leans suspiciously away from him and against the door. 

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it—“

Taecyeon waves him off, almost vibrating with excitement. “Shut  _ up,  _ will you?” it’s then that Jinyoung notices there’s something in his hand that he’s holding out between them. It’s his phone, the voicemail box pulled up. “Jeez, let a guy get a word in.”

Jinyoung sighs. “Hyung, if this is some stupid joke—“

If Taecyeon is offended by “stupid joke”, he doesn’t show it and continues to smile like it’ll split his face. Instead of trying to explain he just rolls his eyes and presses play on the most recent voicemail, speaker turned all the way up so they can both listen: 

“Hello, this message is for Ok Taecyeon-ssi, Park Jinyoung-ssi’s manager. This is director Im Jaebum—“

Jinyoung’s heart takes a dive.

“I just wanted to thank you for reaching out to my assistant, Mark, on behalf of Park Jinyoung-ssi in order to audition for my film.”

Taecyeon shakes, excited. Jinyoung holds his breath.

“Please pass along the message to Mr. Park that he has the part. The first table read is next Tuesday at 9am.”

_ Click. _

Silence.

Taecyeon is just staring at him, mouth open in a silent, screaming smile like a sideways D. Jinyoung stares at the phone like it had just been speaking German at him and feels the way his heart, once sluggish and defeated, swells with a renewed pounding he can hear in his ears. 

Jaebum’s own voice had said it.  _ Please pass along the message to Mr. Park that he has the part.  _ Jinyoung had been convinced, utterly  _ convinced,  _ that Jaebum didn’t like his performance. He had left with little more than a subtle nod and an empty thank you, with no thoughts or comments on his performance in the audition, even constructive ones he could use for later. It had, by all accounts, seemed like Jinyoung had failed in the worst of ways. But less than fifteen minutes had passed since Jinyoung walked out of the auditorium alone and Taecyeon had shoved the phone at him, message blaring. 

_ What? _

Jinyoung sucks in a sharp, deep breath. “What the hell—?”

“You got the part!” Taecyeon crows, dropping his phone to the center console to grab both of Jinyoung’s arms and shake him in excitement. “Holy shit, Jinyoung, you did it! You got into Im Jaebum’s movie!”

_ Please pass on the message to Mr. Park that he has the part. _

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” Jinyoung stammers, letting his head rock back and forth on his neck as Taecyeon shakes him. He feels nearly deaf over the ecstatic beating of his heart in his ears. “He—he seemed like he hated me! He barely even said thank you when I was done. He just said ‘thank you’ and then walked out, maybe five minutes after I had finished. I thought—“

“Well, you thought wrong, Jinyoung! You got in, Jinyoungie!”

He looks into Taecyeon’s grinning face. His heart unfurls. “Holy shit—“

“He really left the room and called me right away, less than ten minutes after your audition was over, Jinyoung. He basically walked out to call me and tell me you got the part. You really think you did terrible?”

Jinyoung’s head spins—that is what happened, isn’t it? It had barely been fifteen minutes since Jaebum walked out and Jinyoung opened the car door in defeat. Had he really left the room just to call Jinyoung’s manager?

“Hyung, I made it.” he whispers. “I got into his movie.”

Taecyeon turns the engine over, giving Jinyoung one last celebratory slap to the bicep before raising a mischievous eyebrow. 

“Hell yeah, you did. Now let’s go celebrate, huh?”

  
  


**

 

By the time that Jinyoung steps out onto the curb of the club with Yugyeom and Taecyeon in tow, the news of Im Jaebum’s casting decisions have spread like wildfire. 

Since he got home from the audition and called Yugyeom to tell him the news, his phone hasn’t stopped ringing and vibrating and chirping. Neither himself or Taecyeon said anything publicly, unsure whether Jaebum wanted to keep it secret or not, but it’s clear by the way that Jinyoung’s phone is blowing up that he didn’t. He must have posted the information himself somewhere—Jinyoung tried to check, but the prolific, anti-social director’s Twitter account is nonexistent and his Instagram is only pictures of sunsets and grainy behind-the-scenes shots. If he leaked the information, he must have told someone else, who told someone. who told someone else, until the news was out. 

Between messages and phone calls congratulating him on his role, Jinyoung has barely had time to think about the implications of how fast the decision had been. Taecyeon had mentioned it, but it just seems so  _ unreal.  _ After his initial rejection years ago, and the awkward way Jaebum reacted to his tearful audition, Jinyoung had really thought that the man just hated him, for no reason other than he just wasn’t the kind of actor he wanted. Hiring him for this movie sort of proves this wrong, in its way, but even with the excitement of Yugyeom hooting loudly at the crowd gathered outside the club and lifting a laughing Jinyoung haphazardly into his back while Taecyeon cheers them on, there’s still the slightest feeling of hesitation he can’t quite shake. 

“Whatever negative thing you’re thinking,” Yugyeom shouts over the music once they get inside, dropping Jinyoung to his feet. He grabs Jinyoung’s by the tops of his arms and grins so hard the smoky edges of his smudged eyeliner almost disappears. “Whatever you’re telling yourself in your head, make it shut up.”

Jinyoung, in similarly smoky eye shadow mostly at Yugyeom’s request (re: bullying him into it), glances at where Taecyeon’s towering form folds over the glass-topped bar full of swirling neon light to order their drinks and then back at Yugyeom. “How did you know?”

Yugyeom laughs, but it looks silent beneath the blare of the EDM over the club speakers. Yugyeom leans in and balances a leather-jacket clad arm on Jinyoung’s turtleneck sweatered shoulder so he can hear him. 

“Because, idiot, I’m your best friend!” Taecyeon arrives just in time to hand them each two drinks before he’s giving them both a cheeky salute and disappearing into the mass of writhing bodies on the dance floor without them. Yugyeom and Jinyoung clink their shots together before Yugyeom continues, “I could practically feel your energy weighing me down.”

Jinyoung takes the other shot Taecyeon had handed him and grimaces as he wipes his mouth. Eyebrows furrowed, he shouts back, 

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just so  _ weird—“ _

“Is it really?” Yugyeom says, trying to be heard as he turns and guides Jinyoung to the dance floor by the wrist. The stay on the edge for a moment. “You’ve watched enough of his interviews and shit to write a book on the guy!”

Slightly miffed at being called out so easily, Jinyoung doesn’t answer right away. He scans the dance floor instead: the glistening black dance floor is absolutely packed tonight, a little weird for a Wednesday night, although not necessarily unheard of. The VIP section up on the mezzanine that hangs just slightly over where the DJ booth is centered on the far wall of the club is blocked off on both sets of staircases on either side, with all the space taken up there, too. Jinyoung wonders if there’s a special event happening. 

Yugyeom elbows him and points into the crowd, where Taecyeon’s sweaty hair is clearly visible above everyone else’s. “Look!”

They both lean into each other and laugh as Taecyeon attempts to dance on a pretty girl with long blonde hair. Their club of choice is a gay club: it always has been, and always will be this club, and Taecyeon knows that. Jinyoung has to admire his sense of unwavering dedication since ninety percent of the time the girls he hits on are frequent patrons and gay and therefore off the market for him. It also hasn’t stopped him from getting bought his fair share of drinks from handsome guys, which he doesn’t turn down, and if Jinyoung has seen him making out with them for a little bit on the dance floor, well. Who is he to tell? 

Mostly because Jinyoung, too, is scanning the dance floor for someone to kiss. The alcohol in his blood has started to make it hum, a quiet sort of vibrating under the skin that makes his fingers and toes feel a little more alive. Lights in primary colors rotate overhead and cast the otherwise dark club in a near dizzying zoetrope of colors, flashing rapidly and then slowing down to drown the dance floor in varying shades of neon blue, neon green, and a deep, sexy red. The air is hot, humid, dense with the smell of sweat and booze. His ears are assaulted by house music from  the nineties and early 2000s as Yugyeom downs another drink with him and then slips away.

_ Congratulations, hyung, _ he mouths, a double thumbs up in the air before he disappears completely into the mass. 

_ You deserve it,  _ he tells himself. It’s a continuation of Yugyeom’s congratulation, though mostly implied. Jinyoung smiles and lets the last tiny bit of uncertainty about Im Jaebum fall away; he melts into the crowd behind Yugyeom and loses himself in the music. 

He dances for quite a long time—with men, with women, with both at once. Some people are too drunk to recognize him, and some aren’t. Both are fine, actually, since it’s sort of sweet when a man realizes he’s dancing with an actor in one of Lee Minho’s movies and they get a little shy. Jinyoung refuses some requests for pictures, sure he’s looking drunk and bloodshot and sweaty, but promises in slurred speech with wandering hands that they if they ever see him in public again,  _ just come up and ask, hyungnim, I'll be happy to oblige.  _

After a good hour and a half or so of dancing and more drinks, a large pair of hands land on his shoulders and shake. 

“What the—“

But it’s just Yugyeom. His sweaty hair brushes against Jinyoung’s equally damp temple when he leans in from over Jinyoung’s shoulder to shout in his ear. 

“Look,” he says, and points up at the mezzanine. Jinyoung follows the line of his silver laden fingers, and is shocked to see that the PA from the audition and the assistant, Mark, are sitting casually on an overstuffed couch in the VIP section. 

“That’s Jaebum’s assistant,” Jinyoung calls back. He can’t help but drunkenly wonder if Jaebum is here, too: suddenly he feels self conscious in his tight jeans and turtleneck sweater underneath the denim jacket from the audition.  _ Too casual? Too dressy? _

Yugyeom shakes his head and, to Jinyoung’s delayed disgust, sends some sweat flying against his cheek. He points a little further back.  _ “There.” _

And—sure enough, Jinyoung just wasn’t looking hard enough. Yugyeom had been pointing at Jaebum.

“Your man is here!” Yugyeom crows with a laugh. Somehow glitter has gotten all over the sleeves of his jacket and they have now infected Jinyoung’s face, arms, and clothes. 

What startles him the most isn’t that Im Jaebum is in a gay club. He’s not even startled that he’s mostly by himself off in a shadowy corner of the VIP mezzanine, drenched in red light like water, dressed casually in what appears to be khaki colored joggers and an oversized t-shirt with some rapper on the front Jinyoung recognizes but can’t name. What startles him the most is that Jaebum is looking  _ directly at him. _

“Oh,” he says, surprised. Yugyeom laughs in his ear and shakes his shoulders harder. 

“‘Oh’? That’s all?” Yugyeom wraps an arm around Jinyoung’s neck and waves; Jinyoung, embarrassed, throws an elbow into Yugyeom’s stomach and turns away quickly to avoid the glare he’s sure Jaebum is aiming at them. Yugyeom just smiles at him. “Go say hi!”

Should he? Jinyoung turns and looks over his shoulder. Jaebum is still looking at him, eyebrow cocked, which makes his stomach hurt for some unnamed reason. The look clears when a waitress comes by in a short skirt and offers him a beer off a silver platter and Jinyoung looks back at Yugyeom, sighing inaudible under the music.

“He’s in the VIP section, Yugyeom,” he half-shouts, and he feels his buzz starting to fade. He’s not sure if it’s from the lack of reaction on Jaebum’s part, the staring Jaebum seems to have mastered, or the alcohol laced sweat that sticks his hair messily to his temples. “I don’t even know how I’d get up there.”

Yugyeom, grinning, grabs his wrist. He yanks him forward and starts to shove through the massive crowd. “I do!”

“Yugyeom—!” Jinyoung yelps, but it’s lost under the music.

He tries to get his wrist out of Yugyeom’s sweaty grip but it’s surprisingly strong. People push and pull at Jinyoung’s clothes as they squeeze by, their shouts and grunts of annoyance buried under the pulsing EDM that vibrates the floor beneath Jinyoung’s sneakers. Yugyeom seems hell bent on getting him to the VIP section and when they arrive at the bottom of the stairs only to be stopped by a bodyguard, Yugyeom yanks Jinyoung roughly to his side. 

He shouts, “hey! Park Jinyoung wants to go greet his director, are you going to let him in, or what?”

Jinyoung gasps—he didn’t say it rudely, per se, but his tone was certainly more demanding than it had any right to be. The guard, twice as tall as Jinyoung and probably twice both of their weights combined, throws Yugyeom a look that smells like trouble before saying something rapidly into his earpiece that Jinyoung almost doesn’t catch. 

“Yeah. Park Jinyoung is here to see Mr. Im. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, go ahead and ask him if he wants me to let him in.”

Yugyeom taps one of his leather shoes impatiently on the black, sticky floor. The fuzzy edges of Jinyoung’s buzz starts to fade with the trickling anxiety he starts to feel as the bodyguard nods and presses his earpiece harder into the side of his head to hear over all the noise. 

Incredibly, he steps back, but with a hand on Yugyeom’s chest. He makes a small path for Jinyoung to the stairs but blocks Yugyeom from entering.

“You, Mr. Im cleared you.” he glances at Yugyeom, who is halfway to a pout but also starting to grin that his plan actually seemed to work. “You, though. You stay here.”

Yugyeom shrugs. “Have fun, hyung.”

Jinyoung, suddenly very nervous, climbs the sleek, modern staircase by himself and pauses at the top of the landing. The mezzanine isn’t big, but there’s so many people crowded on the platform and gathered around tall tables and on the overstuffed couches that it’s hard to gauge where everyone might be. He can just barely see the top of the skinny PA’s head over a group of people near the railing, but neither him or Mark notice that he’d arrived. Jinyoung, despite being quite the powerhouse in his own respect and having attended hundreds of VIP parties and award shows in his short acting career, can’t help but feel strangely out of place surrounded by what must be  _ Jaebum’s crowd.  _

In any case, he’s already here, so he might as well go say hi. Jinyoung straightens the lapels of his denim jacket and tries to fix the sweaty mess of his hair, starting to get too long as it curls damply beneath his ears. The people crowded together like sardines, some he recognizes and some he doesn’t, barely look at him as he squeezes past with muttered  _ Sorrys  _ and  _ Excuse me _ s. 

Jaebum is still sitting by himself when Jinyoung finally finds him. The overstuffed, violently red couch he’s thrown himself on to with his legs spread like he owns the place seems to be glowing like a warning light under the bloody glow of the club’s red neon. Jinyoung is so mesmerized by seeing him up close like this, slightly sweaty from the heat and eyes glassy from the alcohol that he doesn’t see the glass coffee table in front of him until he’s already crashing into it with his shin.

“Oh, shit,” he mutters, leaning down to steady the empty glasses and bottles as they teeter. He can feel Jaebum’s gaze on the side of his face and is thankful for the harsh lights of the club to hide the flush that burns his cheeks when he straightens. 

Jaebum, of course, has nothing to say: his arms are splayed along the back of the couch, spread out and casual in his loose t-shirt like he’s at home and not one of the most prominent gay clubs in the city. His eyes are pure black in the red light, reflecting it like a mirror, squinted through the haze of booze and drugs. Dangerous and sharp like the fresh tip of a razor blade. 

Jinyoung’s body feels hot. He’s not sure if it’s the atmosphere, the alcohol, or the stare, or maybe all three.

“Um,” he says, and swallows nervously. “I noticed you were here, and I just—I just wanted to come greet you.”

His voice, when he responds, is thick and slightly slurred. It’s sexy; Jinyoung isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with that information and allows his drunk brain to tuck it away for later or, preferably, never explore it again. 

“Okay.” 

There’s no follow up, and they end up watching each other, sitting and standing, with the lights and the music vibrating the air around them.

Jinyoung tries again. “I just wanted to say—um,” he shifts on his feet, nervous under the weight of Jaebum’s heavy gaze. What about it makes Jinyoung feel like Jaebum is reorganizing his insides? Jaebum’s eyes rake down the length of his body before flicking back up to his face and staying there. “I just wanted to say, directornim… thank you for giving me the part.”

“Mm.” Jaebum hums. His legs fall open a little more as he shifts his hips on the couch and Jinyoung fights with himself not to look. Did someone spike his drink or has alcohol always made him feel this nervously sexual? 

But nothing else ever comes. Jaebum continues to stare a sun-sized hole through the center of him, and Jinyoung continues to let himself be hollowed out by the sight of him. It was always so different, seeing him in interviews. Slightly more dressed up in nice pants and collared shirts with a sweatshirt over the top. Professional and honest, a separate entity than the one that sits in front of him in joggers and an oversized t-shirt like some tired college student. And yet, still, the sight of him pulls Jinyoung in like some helpless waves to a super moon. 

Jaebum finally looks away, at the person who approaches them from behind Jinyoung, and the moment breaks.

Without waiting for Jaebum to say anything (knowing that he won’t, of course, because Jaebum so far has showed negative interest in communicating with Jinyoung nearly whatsoever), he ducks under the outstretched arm of the large man who had appeared with more drinks and pushes his way through the crowd again toward the stairs. He pounds down them with a weird, sunken feeling in his heart similar to the one he’d had as he left the audition and tries not to let it sour his celebratory mood, but the buzz has worn off and the emotions come, unbidden. 

After pushing his way through the dance floor crowd, too, he finally stumbles out on the other side near the front most bar and sees Yugyeom and Taecyeon leaning on each other and looking for him. Spotted, they wave him over and immediately swallow him up in an obnoxious, suffocating group hug.

“We’re so proud of you,” Taecyeon slurs, so drunk that Jinyoung can smell the alcohol like it’s dripping from his pores. He grimaces but accepts the hugs before squirming away. 

“Ugh, you both  _ reek,”  _ Jinyoung whines. He wishes he was still drunk; maybe the image of Jaebum splayed out on the couch on the mezzanine like a king would leave him if he was. He tugs on his jacket and motions for one of them to call the driver so they can go home. “But thanks, guys. It was fun.”

Taecyeon wanders off to call the driver. Yugyeom, swaying, leans into Jinyoung and rests his head against Jinyoung’s. 

“Yeah? How’d seeing your man go?”

“It was fine.”

“Huh. Your tone tells me that it’s not fine.”

Jinyoung shrugs. In the middle of this, Taecyeon sticks his head in the door and waves them out, mouthing  _ the driver is here, let’s go  _ before disappearing again. 

Whatever. Yugyeom seems to quickly forget about the argument as Jinyoung pushes him toward the door, which is better for them all. The sooner he forgets about their weird moment on the mezzanine, the sooner Jinyoung can go back to feeling normal and  _ excited  _ about getting the role in critically acclaimed Im Jaebum’s new movie. 

It’s hard, though. Especially when Jinyoung casts one final look back before he slips out the front door and sees Jaebum watching him, eyes heavy from across the club as the front doors close between them.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ DIRECTOR IMstagram](https://twitter.com/dadjyp/status/1079877392535932928)   
>    
>  [THE RUMOR MILL KR | MARCH 2019 ISSUE [COVER] ](https://twitter.com/dadjyp/status/1079872333936975872)   
>    
> 

 

The week between his audition and the table read is spent anxiously, reading the script so many times to see if there’s anything he missed that the corners are starting to wear. Taecyeon tried to tell him to chill out and maybe cut himself some slack since they’re going to have a table read, anyway, but it doesn’t work. Jinyoung usually just waved him off with an impatient hand outstretched in a wordless  _ leave me alone, hyung, I’m preparing. _

“I gotta hand it to you, though,” Taecyeon had snorted, letting himself be shoved out the door of Jinyoung’s apartment. “You’re nothing if not diligent.”

Only he said  _ diligent  _ like it means  _ obsessive.  _ Under normal circumstances Jinyoung would have argued with him about this, but, nevertheless, he locked the door and went back to reading. 

When the table read arrives the next Tuesday, Jinyoung practically has the script memorized. He taps an anxious rhythm against the dashboard with the toe of his Nike sneaker. It’s driving Taecyeon crazy, he knows; he can tell by the way his manager’s fingers tighten on the wheel as he drives him back to the studio grounds. To his (unwaveringly patient) credit, though, Taecyeon doesn’t stop him, instead letting his nerves run their course until he pulls up to a drab looking building inside the lot that looks exactly like all the other drab looking buildings. Jinyoung, heart hammering, blinks at the only identifier on the outside next to the stark white door: a sign that reads BLACK DOG, IM JAEBUM on a changeable placard. 

From behind him: “Still nervous?”

Jinyoung doesn’t turn around. He continues to look at the door to their studio building, which holds some indoor sets and the conference room whose door number is listed on the back page of the script, without really seeing it. 

“Yeah. A little. Not so much about him—“  _ him  _ referring to the director, of course, but since their awkward and uncomfortable meeting at the club the week before, Jinyoung has tried quite hard not to think about him. And failed. “But meeting everyone else. I get to meet Wang Jackson today.”

Taecyeon hums. “Are you scared to meet someone so famous?”

“Kind of. I dunno, I’ve meet other really famous people before at award shows and stuff, and made friends with them on Running Man. But,” Jinyoung bites his lip, still staring at the door. “I’m kinda worried he won’t like me, yeah.”

“I don’t think you’ll have that problem,” Taecyeon assures. He hits the unlock door button as a nonverbal cue for Jinyoung to get the hell out and go inside. “Everybody loves you. Including your new director.”

One hand on the door and about to get out, Jinyoung actually turns and snorts in disbelief. “You wouldn’t still think that if you see the way he looks at me. Seriously, hyung, he… he looks at me like I’m not even there. I don’t know. I’m sure he’s okay with my acting but he hates me, I’m pretty sure.” 

“You’re always exaggerating,” Taecyeon says, and laughs when Jinyoung makes a face. He makes a  _ shoo, shoo  _ gesture at Jinyoung with his hands when he doesn’t open the door right away. “Now get out of my car, please, I have things to do and so do you.”

_ “Your  _ car?” Jinyoung laughs incredulously, but opens the car door and steps out anyway, holding onto it before he closes it. “Ha! What things do you have to do that don’t involve me?”

Taecyeon waits until he’s mid-closing the door to hit the lock and say, “calling your sister and asking her out!” just as Jinyoung slams it shut. 

Appalled, he pulls on the handle even though it’s locked. “Hyung!”

But Taecyeon has no mercy—he laughs muffled behind the window and quickly pulls away from him, leaving him alone outside the studio door with a wave.

“Asshole,” Jinyoung mutters benevolently. Before he grabs the brass doorknob winking brightly at him in the winter sun, he smooths down the front of his grey sweater over his tight jeans and wonders if he underdressed. He’s wearing a collared shirt underneath it, and he has his glasses on, but for a moment he wonders if he looks too much like a college student than a professional actor about to work on one of Im Jaebum’s movies. 

Just then, as he’s debating his choice of wardrobe, the door swings open and a nice cut of dark-brown hair appears in the crack. 

There’s already a wide, beaming smile on Wang Jackson’s handsome face. Jinyoung is distressed to discover that he is  _ also _ much more devastatingly handsome in person. 

“Park Jinyoung?” he asks, and god, even his  _ voice  _ is handsome. Jinyoung starts to sweat a little despite the cold air. An arm clad in a leather jacket snakes out and gestures for Jinyoung to follow him inside. “Come inside out of the cold, you dork.”

He’s a little too dumbstruck to answer, so he just nods a little shyly and follows Chinese superstar Wang Jackson into the shadowed hallway of the studio’s sidedoor. 

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Jackson says, and Jinyoung is surprised to find that Jackson sounds  _ excited.  _ Almost giddy, by the sound of it, as though Jinyoung is the superstar and Jackson is meeting his hero after so much time. Jinyoung is a bit bewildered, to say the least, and the feeling only grows when Jackson gasps and grabs at his bicep as they walk down the hall. “Oh! I just realized—I called you a dork. I’m so sorry—“

Jinyoung laughs softly. Wang Jackson? Blushing in his presence and apologizing for calling him a dork like he can’t believe he disrespected his idol? Jinyoung can almost entirely forget about Im Jaebum’s cold reception of him when Jackson continues to squeeze his arm. 

“I can't believe I called you a dork before we were even introduced. God you probably think I’m an idiot—“

As they emerge from the short shadow of the hallway and approach the conference room door, Jinyoung can see that Jackson’s already large brown eyes have widened even more in shock. Jinyoung laughs behind his pressed together lips and gently touches Jackson’s hand on his arm. 

“Stop apologizing,” Jinyoung says softly, smiling when Jackson smiles. He still can’t believe once of the most famous actors in Asia is currently gripping his arm for dear life and apologizing for calling him a dork like Jackson insulted his whole family, instead. He’s not sure if he’ll ever get used to the head rush of meeting famous people, despite being one himself. 

“I could have at least greeted you first!” Jackson sighs and his cheeks turn pink near the apples, something Jinyoung didn’t think was possibly attractive on a man, and yet, here Jackson is. Jackson looks up shyly from under his lashes. “I was just so excited to meet you. When Jaebum hyung told me that you were the opposite lead, I was so excited. I’ve been dying to meet you.”

Jinyoung’s head is swimming. The most popular actor of their time, the most popular man in Asia, has wanted to meet him?  _ Dying  _ to, even? Jinyoung sucks in a breath and tries not to pass out from the whirlwind of emotions. 

He lets Jackson hold open the door for him and waits for him just inside the threshold, too nervous to look around at the square table with a smattering of people seated at it already. Jackson smiles at him, big and beaming, and, despite his anxiety, he can feel the gentleness of it as it calms his nerves just a fraction. 

“Next time just ask for an autograph,” Jinyoung says, and smiles. “Dork.”

Jackson bursts out laughing and slings his arm around Jinyoung’s slim shoulders. “I think we’re gonna get along fine, Jinyoung-ah.” 

He laughs with his lips pressed together. Could it really be that the most famous person in Jinyoung’s line of work really wanted to know him so badly? And their first interaction is because they’re both the stars of Im Jaebum’s movie? He feels like he’s dreaming.

Arm still around his neck, Jackson leads him to the side of the table opposite the door and urges him into the outermost chair. He wonders if this was intentional: it allows Jinyoung a good view of everyone else in the room, but saves him from sitting next to someone that he doesn’t know and having to interact with them directly. Normally he doesn’t mind, and it’s not his first table read, but… something about the overhanging thought of this being the table read for  _ Im Jaebum’s movie  _ makes him feel like it’s his first day on the stage all over again.

Looking around, he realizes that he recognizes a few of the faces seated around him. Not all of them; only some of the bigger names that he’s seen in Jaebum’s previous movies and some bigger-name blockbusters over the last few years. The people that he doesn’t recognize have scripts open in front of them but it looks less like they’re reading them for parts and more like they’re wielding weapons of red pens and highlighters in their hands. 

Jackson seems to notice this and leans closer to him. He smells nice, which Jinyoung tries not to think about. Like sweat and soap and expensive cologne. 

“Those are the editors,” Jackson whispers, shoulder against his own. “They sit in on the table reads and make notes on the script as we go through them and change whatever Jaebum hyung says to change. Did you not have those in your previous roles?” 

“Not necessarily,” he mutters back. He can’t remember there ever being so  _ many _ \--there’s at least four of them, which seems a bit like overkill. Just another strange notch in Im Jaebum’s already strange belt, he guesses. “In my past roles, we just added the notes ourselves. My scripts would be so marked up by the end of the table read sessions that I could barely read it.”

Jackson laughs and, oh, goodness, the sound of it is even better in person than it is in interviews on TV. “He’s not that trusting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen any of his interviews?” Jackson asks, and smiles knowingly when Jinyoung blushes a little and nods. “Thought so. I mean, just think about it. Do you remember when he got up and walked out of that live interview for the release of his second movie just because the interviewer asked him a question he didn’t like?”

Of course he does––it was the scandal of the month at the time. Nobody in the business could believe that, in the middle of a promotional run before the film premiered, that Jaebum would throw away an interview with one of the biggest entertainment channels on television at the time by walking out on it. Just another one of the reasons that Jinyoung felt so drawn to him, though: he’s so no nonsense about his work, and even something as simple as the overstep of a boundary was enough for Jaebum to walk out. 

“I don’t think you can blame him, though,” Jinyoung says. “He did explicitly tell that reporter that he wouldn’t answer any questions about his personal life, just the film, and she asked him, anyway.”

Jackson shrugs. “True, but––”

Before he can finish, the door they had come through opens with a gentle  _ swish.  _ Mark, Jaebum’s handsome assistant, steps into the room with a small smile on his face accompanied by an even smaller wave.

“Hello, everyone,” he says, letting the too-long sleeve of the shirt underneath his oversized hoodie flop back down past his fingers when he moves to sit across from them. “Jaebum should be here in just a moment.”

Jinyoung’s stomach turns. No matter what, he just can’t seem to shake the omnipresent nervousness that lingers around him like a low cloud caused by Im Jaebum’s whole existence. Every night he had thought about their weird encounter at the club: Jaebum’s glassy, shark-black eyes, drilling a hole through his insides. The arrogant spread of his legs on the blood-red couch, the heat of his gaze as he looked Jinyoung up and down bathed in the blood-red light. The realization that the person he built director Im Jaebum up to be was not the same person who looked through him and spoke to him like he wasn’t really there. 

Jackson nudges his arm with a gentle elbow. “You’re so stiff all of a sudden. Nervous?”

Usually he’d try to save face and lie, but… something about Jackson’s energy and soft, dark eyes full of genuine concern despite just meeting in person for the first time barely twenty minutes ago makes Jinyoung want to bare his whole soul to him. He bites his lip.

“A little. I don’t know, I feel like––” how does he explain this in a way that doesn’t make him seem crazy? “I feel like he doesn’t like me?”

Jackson scoffs quietly. “Oh, no way. Everyone feels like that when they first meet him. Actually, they feel like that after meeting him. And the whole time they know him.”

It’s obviously a joke, but even still, there’s something about it that makes him think it’s just a little bit true. Despite the way Jaebum comes alive in interviews when discussing his work, or the small snippets of a different life on his Instagram captured in cat-filled, 30 second videos, there is a coldness that lingers around him like a shadow that won’t be stomped out by the dark. Like he’s untouchable on a planet of his own a million miles away. 

But maybe Jinyoung is just reading into it too much. 

Either way, he doesn’t get a chance to answer. The door opens again, a little more carelessly than the way Mark had opened it, shutting with an audible  _ thump  _ as Jaebum sweeps into the room with his hands full. He doesn’t greet anyone or even look up: he makes a quiet grunting noise, which Mark seems to understand as a full sentence:  _ help me, please.  _ Mark gets up and shakes his sleeve back to grab some of the slipping pens and papers before they go clattering to the floor. 

“Where’s your briefcase, dumbass?” Mark huffs, and Jinyoung is a little taken aback at the name calling, but Jaebum’s lips twitch just a fraction in the barest hint of a smile. 

Hands finally free of an imminent disaster of dropped paper and pens, Jaebum reaches back to readjust the backward cap pulled down over his messy black hair. “Didn’t go home last night.”

Mark sits back down and visibly rolls his eyes. “Is that why you’re late?” 

His lips twitch again. Jinyoung, who has been watching him warily since he entered, finds himself wondering what a full-blown smile would do to the stony handsomeness of his face. 

Before he sits down next to him, Jaebum loosens the sleeves of a red sweatshirt rivaling the size of Mark’s from around his waist and takes off his hat to put it on. It bunches on the leather belt cinched around his hips, dark jeans pulled up disastrously low. Jinyoung looks back up into his face when it reappears out of the hood of his sweatshirt and is startled to find that Jaebum is looking at him already. 

He looks away first, though, back at Mark as he adjusts his hat again and sits down. He has still yet to greet anyone else in the room, despite all of his actors and actresses being present. His voice when he speaks to Mark is low, even still, as though they’re the only two people in the room. 

“Is it really considered late if it’s my own table read?” 

Mark shoves the papers at him; Jinyoung realizes it’s a sheet of scribbled notes on top of the script. “Yes.”

Finally, Jackson interjects. The leather of his jacket sleeve brushes against the arm of Jinyoung’s sweater as he leans back in his chair.

“Hello, Jaebum hyung. It’s nice to see you again.”

Jaebum nods at him without looking up from the papers he’s organizing on the table. “You too, Jacks. I’m happy you wanted to be on this project.” 

Jackson slaps a hand on Jinyoung’s shoulder. “When I heard Park Jinyoung was going to be in it, you bet I wanted to take it.” 

Oh, that’s embarrassing. For Jinyoung, anyway; he can feel that strange, empty heat of Jaebum’s stare on his face, but a blush has started to creep across his cheeks at Jackson’s open affection and he stares at the table instead. 

“It being me wasn’t enough to get you in on it?”

“Of course it was.” Jackson’s hand moves to beneath Jinyoung’s chin, lifting it a bit, like he’s offering his face on a palm. “But look at him. How could I resist saying yes to a project when you put him in it?” 

This time, blushing harder and frozen under Jackson’s touch, he does look over. Jaebum blinks at him blankly for a prolonged moment;  _what are you thinking?_ he wants to ask, so, so badly, but then Jaebum just looks down at his notes. Jinyoung’s heart takes a shallow dive.

He shuffles some paper around and then flips the script open. Jinyoung watches him scan the pages with his eyes, flipping through, before he mumbles, “let’s start on page 389.” 

It’s a page toward the back of the script which means the scene he wants to read is one near the end. The particular scene is an emotional one: Jinyoung is kind of surprised he wants to start out reading something so raw, instead of reading something more calm, or perhaps some of the exposition scenes. Jinyoung has to cry in this scene and with how weird and heavy his chest feels ever since Jaebum walked in, he thinks he might not have to try too hard.

The reading, in Jinyoung’s opinion, starts off well. The other minor cast members have little to do besides listen and make notes, since the majority of the film is just between Jinyoung’s character and Jackson’s. It’s much easier to read off him than it was Mark, since Jackson is actually trying, and Jinyoung can feel himself falling into the character of Jaewon, letting the distraction of Jaebum sitting across the table from him like in so many of his dreams drop away. 

They get through barely a couple of calmer scenes before the interrupting starts.

It’s not unheard of for a director to interrupt a read to add notes, or change the direction of a scene. Jinyoung is used to that. He’s sure Jackson is, too. What he’s not used to is the  _ frequency  _ of it when sitting at Jaebum’s table: it seems like every time they get into a scene that requires more emotion, there’s something Jaebum doesn’t like about it. He makes this noise in his throat like a sigh and interrupts  _ no, no, not like that, do it again  _ without ever saying  _ hold on  _ or even  _ please.  _ Jinyoung would be a liar if he said that regardless of how intimidated he is by Jaebum, that it isn’t pissing him off. It  _ is.  _ There’s something so…  _ derivative  _ in his tone––or lack thereof, rather, since there’s nothing in his voice or facial expression to convey what he really wants. It bothers him when the sound comes and Jaebum follows it with a  _ nope, not that, try again and do it better  _ is directed at his co-stars, but he hates it even more when it’s directed at him. And by the way the read has started to take them into a more emotional part of the script, he feels like it’s not going to end any time soon.

They’re having an argument in the police station where Jackson’s character En Lai works after Jinyoung’s character discovers that the older brother had been in the middle of uncovering a dirty cop at the station when it starts up again.

“'You knew?'” Jinyoung heaves, digging down deep to get that waver in his voice rife with anger and pain. “'You knew Jaesung hyung was digging into something that he wasn’t supposed to, and what, you didn’t––'”

Jaebum interrupts. “No. No, no. Start over.”

Jinyoung tries not to sigh in annoyance. He really can’t seem to be satisfied with anything any of them are doing, but  _ especially  _ Jinyoung. The intimidation makes way for fresh irritation.

“From the top?”

Without looking at him, Jaebum nods. 

_ Okay,  _ Jinyoung thinks.  _ He’s not being an asshole. He’s just picky. I think.  _

Regardless, Jinyoung rolls his shoulders and starts over: 

“'You knew? You knew Jaesung hyung––'”

“No,” Jaebum interrupts again, deep voice low but void of any real emotion for Jinyoung to pinpoint what his problem with the way he’s reading might be. “Again. Better this time.” 

Irritated, Jinyoung slowly closes his eyes and takes a quiet deep breath in to stop himself from having an outburst. 

“'Jaewon-ah,'” Jackson says first, his voice heavy with hurt. “'I’m sorry, I didn’t think––'”

But Jinyoung’s character interrupts. He closes his eyes away from the script and tries his lines again, more forcefully, more out of the chest like he hopes Jaebum wants. “'You knew? You knew Jaesung hyung was digging into something that he wasn’t supposed to, and what, you didn’t think to stop him? To tell someone––'”

He’s interrupted once again when Jaebum sighs for real and flips the marked-up script in front of him closed with a loud rustle. Jinyoung can’t help it--he glares at him, face flushing hot with embarrassment, but Jaebum isn’t looking at him.

“That’s all for today,” Jaebum says, standing up out of his chair. The glance that passes over Jinyoung is cold as ice and as brief as wind off a glacier. Jaebum nods to the rest of them as he picks up all his things in his arms and says, “Mark and Bambam will see to it that you all find your trailers. See you tomorrow, same time.”

And then he just…  _ leaves. _

Dumbfounded, Jinyoung can’t do anything but stare at the place Jaebum had just been standing even as the rest of his co stars pack up their things and follow with murmured greetings. Jackson, in the background, assures a fidgeting Mark that he can guide Jinyoung and himself to their respective trailers; he’d already been by them earlier that morning. 

The room slowly empties and Jinyoung barely realizes it. He’s too lost in this thoughts, trying to come to terms with the fact that the Im Jaebum he built up in his head all these years is definitely  _ not  _ the same person he’d just been in the room with. It feels strange to be disappointed by it, and he’s not sure if he’s more disappointed that Jaebum isn’t who he thought he was, or if he’s disappointed that his dream of working with him isn’t quite turning out like he hoped it might. 

Jackson waves a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Park Jinyoung.” 

He blinks and looks up. “Sorry.” 

“You seem like you could use a hot meal after all of that. Want to get dinner?” 

Had that much time really gone by? Jinyoung checks the watch on his wrist and is surprised to see that it’s nearing three o’clock. The reading hadn’t felt that long, except maybe at the end when Jaebum kept interrupting him, but he nods. 

“A little early for dinner, isn’t it?”

Jackson laughs and links their arms together as they pack up their own scripts and head out of the building together. 

“A bit, but do you really mind being taken out by the most famous actor in Asia at the moment?”

He laughs, too––Jackson can’t seem to hold back the self-deprecating grin, telling Jinyoung he definitely shouldn’t take that seriously. They arrive at the low, sleek black viper of Jackson’s car and he whistles low. 

“Wow,” he says, and is even more impressed when the door opens  _ upward  _ instead of out. “No, of course not.” 

Jackson ends up taking him to a restaurant a little  _ too  _ upscale: despite Jinyoung’s success and the very steady flow of money he makes, stepping into the dark of the restaurant from the bright of the day in his college-boy outfit makes him feel horribly underdressed.

They slide into opposite sides of a booth that, of course, Jackson requested specifically and got. It’s on the second floor of the restaurant and reserved for only the most VI of VIP, and Jinyoung thinks Jackson can tell he feels just a tiny bit out of his element as they pick up their velvet lined menus. 

“This place is so  _ fancy _ ,” Jinyoung laments, not even bothering to find something to order, too preoccupied with holding the menu closed and running his fingers over the crushed red velvet. He holds it up in disbelief. “The menu is literally coated in velvet, Jackson.  _ Coated in velvet.”  _

Jackson laughs. “Have you never been here before?” 

He scoffs and lays the menu down flat, glancing down at it and trying not to focus on the insanity of the prices. Without looking up, he gestures to his outfit. “Do I  _ look  _ like I’ve been here before?” 

“Oh, don’t even try it,” Jackson teases. “I can tell from here that your sweater is Burberry.”

That’s true, and Jinyoung just smiles cheekily at him from across the table, heart fluttering when Jackson smiles back.

They lapse into a steady conversation, breaking it only when the waiter comes to get their orders and once again when their food comes. Suddenly curious, Jinyoung pushes some crisp lettuce around on his plate with a fork before asking,

“Is he always like that?” 

Jackson pauses with his own fork halfway to his mouth. “Who?”

“Director Im,” he mumbles, like he’s ashamed to be asking. He’s not sure why he should feel so embarrassed about asking after him, but he does, anyway. “Is he always so…?” Jinyoung waves his fork in the air vaguely when he can’t think of an adjective that isn’t  _ asshole. _

“Rude?” Jackson supplies, and smiles when Jinyoung’s face pinks underneath the soft light of their booth’s overhead lamp.

He sighs. “I guess. Yeah. Is he always like that?” 

Jackson puts his fork down, and Jinyoung thinks that by the way he delicately pats his mouth with the cloth napkin, he’s going to give him a very serious answer. There’s a beat of silence between them filled with the soft jazz of the restaurant's music and the swish of Jackson’s leather jacket against the velvet back of the booth when he shifts. 

“Yes. He is. He’s very…” Jackson mirrors Jinyoung's vague hand motion and settles on, “intense. He’s intense. I don’t even think he knows that he’s being like that––it’s just how he directs.”

Jinyoung sighs again. “I can see that.” 

“He’s not picking on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He had been––even though Jaebum didn’t hesitate to call out or interrupt any of his co-stars during the table read, it did, especially toward the end, feel like Jaebum was specifically targeting him. Even now he’s not so convinced that he wasn’t. 

“I don’t know––it’s not that he’s picking on me, I guess. I just don’t think he likes me.”

Jackson reaches across the table and puts a warm hand on Jinyoung’s wrist; he stills it where he’d been pushing more lettuce around on his plate. There’s a gentleness in Jackson’s eyes when he meets them across the dimness of the table that makes Jinyoung’s heart flutter, in a different way than Jaebum had. 

_ Go away,  _ he thinks, irritable that thoughts of Jaebum would try to intrude on a moment like this. 

“I’m sure it’s not that. Like I said, everyone feels that way when they first meet him. He can be a hard egg to crack. It took me a long time to. He’s…” Jackson pauses. “How do I say this? Intensely private. Childhood trauma. But he’s a good person.”

Jinyoung isn’t so sure about that––maybe it’s unfair to judge him on that so early, but even their interaction at the club that Jinyoung can’t shake, his predatory look and the easiness in which Jinyoung’s attempted warmth just slid right off of Jaebum’s cold exterior like a sheet of snow. The way Jaebum passes over him, hardly ever greeting him, and interrupting him without giving him any criticism to build off of. He’d say it felt personal if there was any indication that Jaebum had any personality. 

Jackson squeezes his wrist and goes back to eating. “He’ll come around though. Maybe.”

There’s nothing to say to this; Jinyoung nods and returns to his own meal, quietly contemplating what Jackson had said about him.  _ He’s intensely private. Childhood trauma. But he’s a good person.  _ Jinyoung isn’t really convinced. 

_ Do I even really want him to like me? _

His subconscious answers quickly, and unwarranted:  _ Of course you do. But how?  _

Luckily, Jackson seems to realize that Jinyoung doesn’t want to discuss Jaebum and his icy exterior anymore, and shifts the conversation back to something more lighthearted that has them both laughing like schoolchildren over the remainder of their meals. Even still, he can’t shake the feeling in his chest that it’s only been one day of reads and Jaebum doesn’t like him, and has shown so little interest in him even since his audition.

And the worst part is, he thinks, even as Jackson chatters tirelessly at him when they’re back in the car, is that he’s  _ disappointed.  _

  
  


**

 

Similarly, the next three days of table reads are full of interruptions, the same if not worse.

Jinyoung isn’t sure what it is, really, that seems to rub Jaebum the wrong way. Jackson had claimed when they went to dinner that it’s not  _ personal,  _ it’s just the way he  _ is,  _ but something about the cold air whipping off Jaebum at every moment seems directly targeted at him. Maybe he’s just projecting, but he really can’t help but take it personally. Especially when Jinyoung sees the way that he interacts with Jackson, and even Mark: arms slung around shoulders, private grins.  _ Laughing.  _ The first time he actually hears Jaebum laugh from the table read room just before he enters, Jinyoung thinks he must be dreaming. 

And, even still, his co stars aren’t totally immune to Jaebum’s constant interrupting and rude decision making. He’s almost condescending in his criticism sometimes: one of the extras that plays Jinyoung’s mother turned quite red in the face after Jaebum scolded her for not reading her lines the way he wanted. Jinyoung could only sit across the table from their director, dumbfounded that he would speak to his actors the way he does.  _ This is a group effort,  _ he had thought, a slow anger simmering in his chest despite Jaebum never once looking at him that day.  _ How do you expect us to help you when you act like this?  _

Even stranger is the fact that  _ no one  _ seems to fight him on it. They take his harshness the way a schoolchild would take a scolding, despite Jaebum being so much younger than many of the actors in the room. None of them ever seem to get angry beyond a redness in their face; none of them have ever argued or fought back and it makes Jinyoung feel like he’s going crazy. Are these actors really this docile, or is Jinyoung just blowing things out of proportion because he feels half insane with disbelief that he’s actually working on this film? It’s hard to say, but the one thing he is sure of is that, as the table reads get longer and longer and Jaebum gets more and more restless and starts laying into Jinyoung more, the less patience he seems to have. 

While it’s no one’s fault but his own, Jinyoung is also excruciatingly tired. He spends all of his nights going over the script, watching Jaebum’s older films, scouring the internet for any information that he can use to make his character the best he can be. Taecyeon sends him quite the novel of a text on Thursday morning that Jinyoung barely reads, something along the lines of  _ your accountant called me this morning to tell me that you spent an alarming amount of money on clothes last night, but from a vintage store that you would never shop at normally, Jinyoung, are you depression shopping?  _

And if he spends some of those late hours scouring the internet for information on Jaebum himself, well… the only person who knows about that is himself and his browser history.

So when Friday morning rolls around, Jinyoung is more tired than usual. The reads always start at 9am on the dot (or, they do in theory; they usually start when Jaebum enters the room five or ten minutes later) and he had been up until 4 in the morning reading articles and interviews that Jaebum had been featured in. Jackson had already texted him earlier that morning to tell him that he’d have to miss the read today––some schedule in China, presenting an award show, leaving Jinyoung alone on his side of the table to fend for himself.

The door swings open at 9:05. Jinyoung, who had been flipping aimlessly through his script and thinking about something else, glances up to see Jaebum dressed casually in tight jeans and a large hoodie enter with his usual stack of papers and a pen behind his ear. His dark hair is messy, combed through with his fingers like he’d just woken up.

Jinyoung feels a tiny shock when their eyes meet, but, as usual, Jaebum watches him for only a moment before his eyes slide away to focus somewhere else. 

“Good morning,” Jaebum says, plopping down in his usual seat across the table from Jinyoung. His hands have stilled from flipping through his script and maybe it’s a lasting after effect from reading about him all night, but Jinyoung can’t seem to look away from him. 

He watches Jaebum flip through his own copy of the script, eyes cast down, and thinks about what Jackson had said.  _ He’s intense. Childhood trauma. But he’s a good person.  _ Jinyoung has admired him for so, so long––since the very first time he’d seen Jaebum’s movies, so desperately wanting to know the genius behind them. Someone so unapologetically proud of being gay, weaving the theme of it into his films, showcasing their own brutal truths to a world that doesn’t always understand. Jinyoung had idolized him so heavily, convinced that he was a model director. To have his illusions shattered so easily makes him feel a bit sea-sick, the ship of his expectations dashed to bits in stormy water. 

Jinyoung watches his thick eyebrows draw together, deep in thought, and an unwelcome observation worms its way into the forefront of Jinyoung’s daydream. He’s much more  _ handsome  _ in person––all sharp cheekbones and plump lips and modern haircut. Jinyoung remembers with an unwarranted warmth the way Jaebum’s dark cat’s eyes had looked at him at the club: the gazelle caught underneath the paw of the lion. And yet, in this room, Jaebum acts as though Jinyoung isn’t even there. 

His face and his chest burn, some strange mixture of irritation and desire. He finds himself just asking,  _ why? _

But there is no answer, and Jaebum looks up at him with an eyebrow raised. The rest of the room is chatting lowly; Mark has abandoned his co-pilot seat to hunt down some coffee on the studio grounds.

“Something wrong?” 

Jinyoung doesn’t even realize that Jaebum is addressing him at first, so accustomed to feeling shut out. He blinks himself back to the moment and says, “who, me?” 

“Yes,” Jaebum replies, voice low, so that only Jinyoung can hear it. He would swear the corners of his lips twitched like he wanted to smile at Jinyoung’s obvious surprise, but he must just be imagining it. 

A bit unsure, Jinyoung shifts in his seat a little. “Um, no. Why do you ask?”

Jaebum gives him that same, almost icy stare he had the day of his audition before looking back down at the script in front of him and flipping quickly like he’s looking for a certain page. “You were staring at me.” 

Jinyoung can feel his face immediately turn bright red. Embarrassed, he says, “oh, I didn’t mean to, I was just spacing out.” He swallows. “Sorry.” 

No answer. Jaebum doesn’t even look back up at him.   
  
He wants to sigh.  _ Some progress is better than none, I guess.  _

When Mark finally returns to the room a few minutes later with a coffee in hand for himself and for Jaebum, the read finally begins. It’s weird without Jackson––he’s the second lead, and a lot of the film’s plot revolves solely around the two of them interacting, so it’s almost difficult for them to find a scene that he isn’t in so that they can go over it. Mark finally points out that there’s a scene in the middle between Jinyoung’s character and his on screen mother that ends in a screaming match with a vase being thrown and broken. More anger on his part; with how tired and thrown off he feels by Jaebum’s sudden initiation, he thinks maybe mustering up the emotion won’t be that difficult. 

It starts off fine––the argument builds between the two of them, and the woman they picked for Jinyoung’s on-screen mother is a hell of an actress. Her voice wavers perfectly as Jinyoung channels more and more of his frustration over Jaebum’s personality into his words, biting through them, making the scene work. 

“‘Hyung would never hurt anybody on purpose,’” he says through his teeth, this part of the script so ingrained into his memory that he doesn’t even have to look. “‘But you believe them so blindly, mom? Just because they’re cops?’” 

“‘Honey, you have to understand––’”

“‘Well I don’t! I don’t understand! You say you love us––”

“No, no,” Jaebum interrupts suddenly, pads of his fingers pressing into his temples. Jinyoung feels a hot stab of annoyance that Jaebum would cut him off right in the middle of him escalating the argument, and tries not to look at him with that emotion on his face. “I don’t like it.” 

He takes a deep breath and looks at his co-star; she nods at him.  _ Go ahead, you start. _

“‘Hyung would never hurt anybody on purpose. But you believe them so blindly, mom?’” Jinyoung adds an offended scoff here. “‘Just because they’re cops?’”

“‘Honey, you have to understand––’”

“‘Well I don’t!’” Jinyoung raises his voice, not quite a shout, but enough that the room feels quieter when he’s done. He can feel Jaebum’s eyes on the side of his face and it makes him stutter. “I––I don’t understand––”

Across the table, Jaebum makes an annoyed sound with his tongue against his teeth. “Yah, come on. Try harder.”

That stab of annoyance turns to a knife blade. Jinyoung takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment, trying to find his center and avoid letting his cheeks turn that splotchy red they do when he’s angry. Jaebum’s eyes are still on him when he opens his own and motions for his co-star to start this time.

“‘Honey, you have to understand––’”

Jinyoung lets it rip again, his voice rough in a growl as he raises it: “‘Well I don’t! I don’t understand! You say you love us, but then you go and do this––’”

He stops abruptly when Jaebum groans and drops his head. Finding himself interrupted,  _ again,  _ Jinyoung feels that simmering anger heat into a boil.

Everyone else in the room disappears when Jaebum looks up at him. “Yah, Park Jinyoung-ssi, are you having a bad day?”

It’s just too much: the late nights, the stress, the disappointment, the cold front, the broken expectations, the interrupting, the everything. The combined eight hours of sleep he’s gotten in the past two nights come cracking down over his head like a piece of wood and against his better judgement, he snaps.

“You know what?” he says hotly, challenging Jaebum by looking at him head on. The stony expression he usually sports changes into one of offended surprise as both of his thick eyebrows raise. “Yeah, I am. Because  _ you  _ keep interrupting. If you’d just let me finish––”

The look shifts from surprise to anger; Jinyoung would be surprised in his own right that Jaebum’s face could be so expressive, but his heart has started to hammer in his ears when Jaebum’s hand fists on the table and he interrupts again.

“––then you’d be putting in half as much effort than I know you can give.” he cocks his head to the side and it feels so condescending that Jinyoung wants to jump across the table and punch that look off his face. “Why would I do that?”

The room around them has gone deadly silent, everyone’s eyes wide, but Jinyoung barely notices. The quizzical look on Jaebum’s stupid, handsome face just looks mocking.  _ You’re not as good as you think you are,  _ it seems to tell him,  _ and I’m trying to show everyone else.  _ It just makes him see red. 

Jinyoung, country boy that he is, is so angry that he lets his accent slip and his politeness drop. He shoots back, 

“If you don’t let me finish my line, then how would you know?”

Silence. 

Jaebum’s eyes are hard and flat like disks. There’s no longer the challenge that there had been just a moment ago, a fire; it has burned out and left him with the coldness of a sneer that pulls at the corner of Jaebum’s mouth. Jinyoung swallows hard and takes a deep breath, waiting for Jaebum to whip back at him with a similar outburst. 

He doesn’t, though. He continues to stare a hole through Jinyoung’s head until finally he just swipes up all of his papers on the table in front of him and stands up so fast the chair he’d been sitting in tips over and slams against the concrete floor. The tin back of it against the hard ground is an explosion in the utter silence.

“See you all Sunday,” Jaebum says through his teeth, and then slams his way out of the room. 

The awkward silence only grows as everyone’s eyes turn from the door to Jinyoung, just staring in disbelief, as though none of them can quite believe that just happened. Ashamed and still angry, he attempts to hide the redness in his cheeks and on his neck by immediately looking down at the table and keeping his gaze there even as everyone else starts to pack up their things. No one addresses him directly, although as everyone filters slowly from the room to leave him by himself, he hears someone mutter  _ good job, Jinyoung,  _ in an awfully sarcastic tone. 

When the door closes behind Mark, who’d been the last person to leave, Jinyoung slumps back in his chair and pulls out his phone. Should he go say sorry? Would Jaebum even give him the time of day? Would it even be  _ worth it? _

Instead, he just types out a message to Jackson, knowing he’s too busy to reply: 

_ If he didn’t hate me before, hyung, he definitely hates me now.  _

  
  


**

 

“If you don’t stop sighing like that, I’m going to kick you out of my room.” 

Jinyoung, helplessly, sighs again. Yugyeom spins around in his desk chair where he’d been scrolling aimlessly through his phone while Jinyoung sprawls on the bed and mopes. The younger boy lightly slaps Jinyoung’s leg.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so—“ Jinyoung lifts his head to look at him and motions vaguely with his hand before dropping back to the bed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“So he really acts like you’re not even there, huh?” Yugyeom asks, and Jinyoung would shoot him a dirty look for sounding so gleeful about it, but he’s too tired to move. “That’s so weird.”

“I don’t get it.” Jinyoung opens his eyes and stares at the bumpy texture of Yugyeom’s ceiling without really seeing it, replaying the events of the last week over in his head. “I snapped at him today, but I’m never late, I know my lines—“

“According to him you don’t.” Yugyeom grins; Jinyoung lifts himself up on his elbows to glare at him before scooting back to lean against the headboard. 

“I get along with the other cast members. Seriously, I don’t know what his problem is. It feels like every time I’m in the room, he just leaves.” 

Yugyeom pops colorful candy in his mouth that he has magically conjured from somewhere and talks around the crunch: 

“Maybe he’s a vampire like that movie you auditioned for all those years ago!”

Typical. Yugyeom brings this up any chance he can get, knowing how embarrassed by it Jinyoung is. Jinyoung picks up a small dog-shaped pillow and launches it at Yugyeom’s head, smiling half-heartedly when Yugyeom laughs and catches it. 

“Ha, ha. Hilarious.”

Cuddling the dog pillow now, Yugyeom shrugs. “Maybe he’s a homophobe.”

If only looks could kill. Yugyeom just grins back at him, though, and Jinyoung has to wonder if he’s being purposefully difficult to take his mind off of it and cheer him up or if he just sadistically enjoys getting Jinyoung riled up. Consequence of Jinyoung being his pseudo-older brother, he guesses. 

“You’ve seen his movies.” Even if he hadn’t, though, he probably still would have known; its a fact that Jaebum has never shied from, often putting out self-produced music or briefly discussing it in interviews before briskly changing the subject. Jinyoung bites his lip. “You know he’s gay.”

Yugyeom, getting bored of Jinyoung’s lamenting, leans back in his computer chair and tosses the dog pillow up into the air and catches it. “Maybe he’s YOU-a-phobic, then.”

Jinyoung sighs. “Don’t be dumb.”

“I’m not,” Yugyeom contests, “but you are.”

“I can’t believe he hates me already.” Jinyoung pauses, chewing his bottom lip while Yugyeom watches him with a raised eyebrow and waits for him to finish. The thought of what he’s going to say next makes his heart constrict and his stomach turn with a strange, dejected anxiety. “Maybe… maybe I should drop out of the project…”

Yugyeom, startled, lets the pillow drop to the floor and nearly jumps from his chair. “What? Are you kidding me?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. We haven’t even started filming yet and it’s already like this. It’s either that or get fired, and I’m sure quitting would be better for my reputation than getting fired…”

“Do you really want that, hyung?” Yugyeom asks, coming to sit next to him on the bed. “Why would you want that?”

“I want…” Jinyoung struggles to verbalize how he feels about this. Is he disappointed because Jaebum isn’t the person he hoped he would be? Is he disappointed because he’s not as good of an actor as he thought? Is he just disappointed Jaebum doesn’t like him? These thoughts plague him and the last one in particular bothers him in a way he’s not sure how to describe. “I just want it to be something he’s proud of.”

In a startling display of wisdom, Yugyeom shoves him over to make room to lay down and says,

“Then make him proud, hyung. If you have to quit, quit for yourself, not for him. I think you’re underestimating yourself and overthinking him. This is going to be good for your career and I know you’re good enough to make it the film he wants. If he doesn’t like you personally, then so what? After the movie you never have to work with him again, but at least you’ll be able to say you did.” 

He’s not wrong. He thinks Yugyeom maybe has missed the point of why it would be better if Jaebum liked him personally, say, the way he likes Mark or Jackson, but he’s not necessarily  _ wrong  _ about everything else. Jinyoung takes a deep breath. 

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

Yugyeom playfully slaps him on the stomach. “Good. Apologize on Sunday, then, and stop moping around about it.”   
  


**

 

The weekend passes by agonizingly slowly. Taecyeon treats him to dinner, stating that he’s tired of watching Jinyoung eye his cellphone like it’s going to come alive at any moment, and that he needs some joy back into his life. Jinyoung isn’t unhappy by any means—he’s in Im Jaebum’s movie, just like he wanted, so how could he be? But Taecyeon seems to think differently. All through dinner on the Saturday night before their first day of shooting he tells Jinyoung multiple variations of,  _ you’re gonna do great and everyone’s gonna love you. _

Nevertheless, he wakes up way too early on Sunday morning and is too nervous to go back to sleep. He’d received an e-mail the previous night from Mark addressed to himself and Jackson that they can wear whatever they want to the studio as they’ll be herded into wardrobe and makeup after Jackson arrives; Jinyoung, distressed by this, calls Taecyeon to seek advice. 

“Hyung, what do I wear?” he asks, ignoring Taecyeon’s sleepy groan.

“You really woke me up early for this? I don’t have to be awake for another hour! You don’t even have to be there until 10!” 

“Mark said I could wear whatever…” he mumbles, completely brushing over what he’d said like he hasn’t said anything at all. “What if I wore… those wide leg pants?”

“No, god, no,” Taeceyon mumbles. “Please, not those. Just wear something simple if you have to change, anyway, you idiot. Wear those nice khaki pants and a shirt and a coat. Not that hard.”

Jinyoung deflates. That outfit seems so…  _ plain,  _ and yet he’s not even really sure why he’s so worried about it. He sighs and pulls a striped t-shirt down off a hanger and thanks Taecyeon with a mutter before hanging up. 

As a consequence of waking him up early, Taecyeon drops Jinyoung off at the studio nearly an hour before everyone else is supposed to arrive. The white door is unlocked, which is sort of strange, but he doesn’t think much of it as he heads down the hallway and past the table read room. The dark hallway narrows quite severely, almost shoulder to shoulder with the walls, before it opens up into a massive room split halfway down by a false wall. On one side, there’s a large set made to look like the film’s precinct: set in the 90’s, the long desks are scattered with mock police reports and the shells of old, blocky computers. The gaudy blue carpet ends along the wall covered with a bulletin board and posters that you wouldn’t find anywhere else but in a dimly-lit police station. 

On the other side of the wall and in the furthest corner of the studio hall is the set up of the hotel room. Jinyoung’s heart skips: this is where some of the more intense scenes come into play between his character and Jackson’s. Jinyoung goes over to it, feeling a bit odd as his footsteps echo in the empty quiet, as though he’s doing something that he shouldn’t. 

The carpet on this side is lush, thick and off-white like a real, nice hotel room. The bed is large, covered and made-up with white sheets and blankets, a nice match to the black and white monochrome of the room. A false window on the opposite wall frames a green-screen where he assumes footage of the city will be added in post, and it looks wildly out of place in the detailed miniature of the sterile hotel room. The leather chairs on either side of a small table underneath the green screen window are a sleek, dark black and Jinyoung finds himself running a palm along the back of them. 

Lost in thought, he stares at his reflection in the fake hotel room TV and doesn’t hear the distant sound of a door closing. He doesn’t realize he’s no longer alone in the studio until he hears the scraping of wooden chair legs against the painted black floor and the soft sound of rustling papers. He jumps and tries not to scream, turning quickly to see who had joined him. 

It’s just Jaebum, and Jinyoung feels a wave of prickling anxiety wash over him as he looks at Jaebum’s broad back. He’s dressed a little nicer today: slim-fitting dark jeans are cinched at his wide hips with a dark belt, topped by a crisp button down hidden underneath a hooded sweatshirt underneath a denim jacket. Jinyoung licks his lips and wishes that his heartbeat would stop echoing in his ears as he clears his throat softly and decides to approach. 

At the sound of his footsteps, Jaebum looks over his shoulder at him and cocks an eyebrow before returning to his bag. Jinyoung tries not to notice that the loose softness of his dark hair looks good pushed back like this. 

“Hello, Jinyoung-ssi,” he says cooly, and despite there only being two of them in the room, he finds himself still being surprised by the deep sound of Jaebum’s voice and a direct greeting. “Thank you for showing up early today.”

Jinyoung nods even though he’s not looking. Jaebum continues to go through the bag he’s propped on his director’s chair, every so often pulling out a pen or a piece of paper. 

“Ah, yes…” he says, and then peters off into a pause. Jaebum looks over his shoulder at him again, expectantly. Jinyoung pulls both of his lips between his teeth for a moment before shifting on his feet and saying, “Directornim… about Friday…” he swallows nervously.  _ Damn you for making me feel like this.  _ “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Jaebum studies him for a moment, those dark eyes on his face before they trail down the length of him. He turns back to his bag, pulling out a large notebook scuffed and stuffed with loose pages. 

“What did you do before this?” 

Jinyoung feels slightly caught off guard. Did Jaebum even hear him apologize? 

“I’m sorry?”

“What did you do before this, Jinyoung-ssi? Before you were in Lee Minho’s film.”

“Ahh..” Jaebum doesn’t turn around but it’s clear by the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders that he’s listening. Jinyoung shifts on his feet again, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his green peacoat. “I’ve always been acting, I suppose. It’s what I went to college for, and I was in a lot of student led projects then. Before that, though, I was––” he tenses when Jaebum straightens, and shifts his weight nervously again. “I did––”

Quite suddenly, Jaebum is turning around and grabbing him by the upper arms. Jinyoung’s eyes widen in alarm and the frantic beating of his heart starts to jackrabbit against his ribs at the feeling of Jaebum’s warm hands seeping through the arms of his coat. 

His eyes are dark, serious and small. “Don’t do that.”

Jinyoung swallows nervously; he notices that Jaebum notices but is still a little too shocked to think too much of it. “Do what?”

The warm fingers on his arms squeeze a bit; Jinyoung feels like he’s dreaming. Is this really happening? After two weeks of getting iced out by Im Jaebum, suddenly he’s holding him by the tops of his arms and standing so close that Jinyoung can smell the handsome cologne he’s wearing. The dark of his eyes is almost dizzying this close, even more so when they’re trained on him without being so cold and uninviting. 

“Look nervous.” 

Jinyoung almost laughs, but manages to swallow it back. His mouth speaks before his brain can catch up and he breathes, “I  _ am _ nervous.”

Something on Jaebum’s face changes. He isn’t sure what.

Regardless, it’s there and gone in a split second, and then he’s letting go of Jinyoung’s arms and stepping back a little. “Just save your emotion for the camera. Don’t fidget. It’s a bit unsightly for an actor like you to fidget, isn’t it?” 

Jinyoung resist the urge to do just that and nods instead. “Uh, yeah… Sorry…” 

“So,” Jaebum continues, going back to his bag and continuing to arrange things inside of it. “What did you do before this?” 

“I danced in music videos, mostly.” 

Jaebum turns back around with a quizzical eyebrow raised. “You can dance?” 

He laughs, a little nervously. “Yeah. Dancing was a part of my role for Lee Minho’s movie, so he thought I fit it well.”

And, even more strange than their entire interaction so far, this…  _ look  _ passes over Jaebum’s face. It’s something in the slow blink of his eyes, deciphering what he said, the slightest pass of his tongue across the inside of his bottom lip that Jinyoung catches. Jinyoung can’t for the life of him figure out what that’s supposed to signify.

“Mm. I know. I’ve seen it.”

Jinyoung’s heart stops. Im Jaebum has seen his movie? He guesses he shouldn’t be  _ surprised;  _ the content and even the production is something quite similar in taste to the sort of films that Jaebum has made, drenched in neon and covered in blood. But the way he’d said it, the little hum, makes Jinyoung’s rabbit heart run, and a thousand questions blast through him:  _ did he like it? Did he hate it? Does he know Lee Minho hyungnim? What does he think of it? What does he think of me in it–– _

From behind them, a shout breaks the staring contest that had started, Jaebum finally facing him and sitting down in the director’s chair. He watches Jinyoung from underneath his lashes until Jinyoung is turning around when his name gets called.

“Yah! Park Jinyoung-ssi!” The PA, Bambam, is standing at the mouth of the hallway and frantically waving a translucent clipboard covered in papers over his bleached-blonde head. “Excuse me,  _ sir,  _ you were supposed to be in makeup fifteen minutes ago!” 

He gives a slight bow of apology, face burning pink, before turning back around. “Sorry to keep you, directornim, I’m going to go now––”

“Remember what I said,” he says quietly, eyes no longer on Jinyoung but on the pages of the notebook he had opened on his lap.

_ I know, I’ve seen it. _

Jaebum glances up at him, that same look on his face that he’d had after his audition. The subtle,  _ why are you still standing here? _

“Save the emotion for the camera.”

And then, without a parting greeting or dismissal, Jaebum pulls out his cellphone and smiles at the text on the screen. Jinyoung’s heart slows and then drops; it’s a dismissal, all the same.

_ So much for progress,  _ he thinks miserably, and goes to follow Bambam from the room. 

 

**    
  


He had hoped, fruitlessly, that the actual filming would be different. It was annoying enough to be constantly interrupted during a table read, but it is infinitely more so when Jinyoung is mid action and Jaebum’s low voice calls out  _ Cut!  _ from where he’s sitting on the side in his director’s chair. Even without the added weirdness from their interaction earlier that Jinyoung just can’t decide was good or bad, getting constantly corrected and having to move back to a mark is annoying not just for him, but for the rest of the crew, too. 

The scene they’ve started to film isn’t a calm one, either. It’s a scene early on the film, when En Lai and Jaewon are first meeting, in the police station so that En Lai can tell Jaewon about his brother’s death. The scene involves lots of shouting on Jinyoung’s part, and an overall sense of urgency and heartache that could be so, so good–– _ if only Jaebum would let the scene play itself out.  _ But instead, he’s calling  _ cut  _ every time Jinyoung steps an inch to the wrong side, or his breath catches on the wrong word, or Jackson touches him on the wrong part of his arm. It’s always  _ cut, cut, cut; do it again, but better this time. _

Hours pass of this and Jinyoung’s nerves are wearing thin. He supposes it could be good to draw on for the scene, but Jaebum is constantly stopping them to tell Jinyoung, directly,  _ Jinyoung-ssi, don’t stand like that.  _ Or,  _ Jinyoung-ssi, trying saying this differently. Give me more emotion.  _ Or,  _ Jinyoung-ssi, play off Jackson’s emotions better. What are you doing?  _ It’s starting to drive Jinyoung closer and closer to the edge of another outburst.

During a small break in shooting while the set staff resets for the millionth time, Jackson seems to notice Jinyoung’s agitation manifesting in the way he runs both hands through his hair. He comes closer and puts a light hand on Jinyoung’s waist; at any other time it would probably make his heartbeat quicken, an intimate touch like that, but through his frustration he can barely feel it. 

“Are you okay?” Jackson asks softly, big brown eyes wide in concern. Jinyoung goes to tug on his hair again (which is probably angering Bambam, the PA-slash-stylist as he’s come to find out) but Jackson’s other hand gently closes around his wrist. 

“I’m just––” Jinyoung blows out a breath and tries to ground himself with Jackson’s gentle touch. “He’s making me so mad.”

Jackson nods. “I know. It can be really frustrating.”

“He’s singling me out!” Jinyoung hisses, getting worked up again. His mind whirs through all the times at the table reads, their first argument, their weirdly amicable interactions, and now this, turning everything to an angry mush. “I don’t know what it is, Jackson, but he hates me. I don’t get it!” 

“I already told you he doesn’t hate you,” Jackson murmurs, hand sliding on his hip. “This is just how he is. He’s very serious.”

He lightly bangs a fist against the chest of Jackson’s button down shirt, barely missing the prop badge hanging from the lanyard around his neck. “I think you’re wrong. I think he does hate me.”

“If he hated you, Jinyoung-ah, I don’t think you’d be here.”

Jinyoung’s mouth tightens and his temper flares dangerously high. “Then why does it feel like he’s trying to force me out?”

Jackson sighs. He’s clearly getting frustrated, too, but it doesn’t seem directed at Jinyoung as much as it is the entire situation. “He’s not trying to force you out. If he didn’t want you here, he would have fired you on the spot. You know that, don’t you?”

He’s right––another thing about Im Jaebum that precedes him is his reputation of firing people on the spot in the middle of filming if they don’t satisfy his requirements. Many actors and actresses of calibers far above Jinyoung’s have been subjected to it. It’s a well known fact in the world of film that if Im Jaebum doesn’t like your performance, he’ll cut you before you even have the chance to argue your case. 

But, even still, Jinyoung can’t shake the feeling that it’s  _ personal.  _

“And it’s not personal,” Jackson adds quickly, seeming to sense where Jinyoung is going to go next. “It’s just how he is––”

Jinyoung explodes. He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but he does, and it cracks in the air over the low chatter of the staff and background actors loitering around.

“Well it’s  _ bullshit!”  _

Jackson makes a face at him like  _ Oh, Jinyoung  _ when an obvious silence follows. He senses the way Jaebum turns around to look at him and faces him head on, bottom lip between his teeth and Jackson’s hand on his hip turning to the comforting pressure of fingertips. 

The look on Jaebum’s face is nothing like it had been earlier, when they were alone. Now it is cold again, all carved sheet of ice. “Do you have something to say, Jinyoung-ssi?”

He huffs, annoyed at his outburst and at Jaebum for constantly doing a 180 on him. “No. Just––”

Jaebum interrupts him. “It seems like you do.”

More forcefully, Jinyoung says, “I don’t.”

“Whatever it is,” Jaebum says, a tone in his voice like tired annoyance, “spit it out so we can get back to shooting.”

Jackson’s hand tenses on his hip in a silent warning,  _ calm down.  _ But his blood is so hot and Jaebum is so flippant and so awful he can’t stand it. From between his teeth, Jinyoung spits,

“I don’t. Have. A problem.”

Jaebum stares him down; it’s the same stare from his first day at the audition, all empty eyes and disinterested tilt to his mouth. 

“Then why can’t you get these lines right?”

The whole room seems to hold its breath. Jackson lets go of Jinyoung’s hip, as if sensing that whatever happens next he can’t control and it’s best to give Jinyoung his space. Jinyoung is stunned for a moment— _ why aren’t you getting these lines right?  _ How dare he? As if Jinyoung hasn’t been pouring over this script for weeks, studying it even though he basically has it memorized, staying up late into the night to get character inspiration. As if he isn’t putting everything he has into this, despite all the obstacles. 

He isn’t like the others, those docile sheep. They might be used to this, Jaebum’s flippancy and tendency to criticize too harshly. but Jinyoung isn’t. He won’t allow himself to be. Yugyeom had said in his room that Jinyoung quits on his terms or not at all—if Jaebum really is trying to make him angry enough to quit, it’s not going to work. He’ll have to fire Jinyoung first. 

He throws his hands up and shouts at him. “I  _ am  _ getting them right! You just keep making us film the same scene over and over, and for what? Because I step the wrong way?” Jinyoung grinds his teeth together, chest heaving slightly. “You’re singling me out. So I don’t know what _your_ problem is!”

Despite Jinyoung’s outburst, Jaebum’s face never changes. Perhaps he detects a little tightening around his eyes and mouth, but the calm nothingness on Jaebum’s face is a stark contrast to the naked surprise on everyone else’s. Jaebum just levels him with a look and says, 

The problem is you’re an actor and you’re not giving me what I want.”

Jinyoung scoffs. “Then why’d you hire me?”

And, there—this must have done it. His whole face changes, eyebrows dropping, a knot appearing in his jaw as he clenches his teeth hard enough for it to be visible from across the room. He’s  _ angry  _ now, visibly so, and the satisfaction of the reaction burns in Jinyoung’s chest. 

“Because I thought you could do it.”

“I have being doing it!” Jinyoung shoots back. “It’s—“

This time when Jaebum interrupts, his low voice has dropped further into the roughness of a near growl; all the anger of a shout trapped inside a normal volume. The glacier wind whipping off him only intensifies when he straightens and seems to will the look to clear. 

“Not good enough. It’s not good enough.”

Silence. 

The room was already quiet, full of spectators to the showdown between main lead Park Jinyoung and director Im Jaebum. But Jaebum’s words were meant to hurt, and the audience of them seem to inhale on a collective gasp when the words leave Jaebum’s mouth. Jinyoung’s whole body feels like it was just doused in ice water.

He’s about to say fuck Yugyeom’s advice and quit. If Jaebum really wants him gone this badly, then Jinyoung refuses to put up with his pussyfooted attempts to force him out by telling him he isn’t good enough. Jinyoung takes a breath and opens his mouth like he’s going to tell Jaebum to shove it, but the director beats him to it.

In mid-turn back to his chair and pulling his bag up into the seat to shove his papers back in it, Jaebum waves them all off nonchalantly. “That’s all for today. We’ll all come back tomorrow, same time, same scene.” He slings the black strap over one shoulder of his grey hoodie and levels a nearly shaking Jinyoung with one last disinterested look. “And Jinyoung-ssi, I advise you to practice your lines.”

With that, he waves to a couple of the staff members and leaves the studio. 

While the rest of the room comes back to life, immediately drowning out the buzzing silence in Jinyoung’s head with chatter, he feels frozen to the spot. Jaebum had really just humiliated him like that in front of everyone like it was nothing. Jaebum took no time at all to tell Jinyoung that he’s not good, and he had done it in front of all of their crew without even a single word of constructive criticism to build off of it. His words had been coated in ice, and Jinyoung feels the burn of them against his heart. 

Jackson steps into his view, hand on his arm. “Hey. You okay?”

Jinyoung shakes his head, but it’s more of an attempt to center his thoughts than it is an answer. “Um, yeah. Yeah. Just a little shaken.” he runs a hand through his hair. “Angry. You know?”

“Do you…” and, suddenly, Jackson looks a little nervous. He swallows hard and only looks briefly into Jinyoung’s eyes before looking away again, at his mouth. “Do you want to come back to my trailer?” Quickly, his face starts to pink and he says frantically, “we can run lines, if you want. Just to cool off.”

It feels like he’s never going to cool off until he quits or gets fired, but he appreciates the gesture from Jackson and can’t deny to himself that the nervous tongue that wets Jackson’s lips is a distraction of the best kind. With a slow nod, Jinyoung takes Jackson’s hand and takes a deep breath. 

“Yes,” he says, softly, and let’s himself be led by the hand to the doors of the studio and out toward Jackson’s trailer. 

_ Please,  _ he thinks to himself, eyes closed against the burned image of Jaebum grabbing his arms earlier that morning, so close Jinyoung could smell him, feel the warmth of him, and tries to keep it away. 

_ Please, please let me forget about him. _

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [you cut me open, and pull me apart   
> a hollow chest instead of a heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOtvy-zioO0)  
> 

 

“Jinyoung…”

He whimpers, eyes squeezed shut. The light streaming in from the small trailer window is too bright against his closed eyes, not quite awake, but no longer asleep. Warm hands on his bare arms shake him softly.

Jackson’s voice is groggy, deep and rough edged with sleep. “Jinyoung, wake up––”

_ Bangbangbang!   _ Jackson’s trailer nearly rocks with the force of the pounding on the front door.

“What t’hell?” Jinyoung mutters, finally opening his eyes all the way. Jackson is leaning over him, dark brown hair a messy nest and bare chest spotted with little bruises from Jinyoung’s mouth. Rubbing one eye with the back of his hand, he says, “what’s going on?”

Just as bleary eyed as Jinyoung and just as naked, Jackson shows him the face of his iced out watch. He’s startled to read the time––nearly 10:30 in the morning. They were supposed to be in wardrobe and on set over half an hour ago. 

He sits up, suddenly shocked awake. “Who is banging on the door?” 

Jackson throws the blanket off, standing up and quickly reaching into the small closet next to it for underwear and a shirt. He tosses a pair to Jinyoung and makes a face. 

“I think it’s Bambam.”

“The stylist?” Jinyoung wonders why, of all people, the stylist would show up to yell at them.  He’s a bit surprised it’s not Mark and he’s grateful it’s not Jaebum. “Have you ever been late to set before?” 

“Yeah,” Jackson says, quickly buttoning up a plain black shirt. If they had more time, Jinyoung probably would have laid back down and just admired the shape of him, all tanned skin marked with Jinyoung’s hickies. He briefly wonders how Yugyeom is going to react to hearing that Jinyoung slept with the most famous actor in Asia, but quickly pushes the thought away as Jackson motions for him to hurry before going to open the door. 

“Finally!” He hears Bambam say, and then there’s the tell-tale sound of his clipboard smacking some vulnerable place on Jackson’s body. “You are so late, you idiot! I haven’t even gone to Jinyoung-ssi’s trailer, yet, and if you were this difficult to wake up––”

_ Oh, how dreadful,  _ Jinyoung thinks, pulling up his pants from the day before that had been very quickly thrown to the floor and forgotten about. Not only is Bambam about to get the surprise of his life when Jinyoung appears behind Jackson, but everyone else in the studio is probably going to suspect what happened when they show up late together and Jinyoung is in the same clothes as yesterday. As he pulls his shirt back on and shuffles toward where Jackson is standing with the door open, he hopes that Jackson didn’t leave quite as many visible hickies on him and, if he did, that they’re easy to cover up.

Bambam is still ranting at him when Jinyoung sheepishly waves to him from behind Jackson. “Um, no need to go to my trailer, I guess.”

His dark eyebrows disappear into the fringe of his bleached hair. He wonders if Bambam is  _ really  _ surprised, or is more surprised-slash-annoyed that the reason they’re late is because they spent all night hooking up instead of sleeping.

Either way, he doesn’t comment on it directly, instead just showing both of them the face of his own watch. “Well, you were supposed to be on set over half an hour ago. They filmed some stuff without you, but…” he hesitates and, for whatever reason, looks at Jinyoung when he finishes: “Director Im is  _ pissed.” _

Jinyoung’s whole body flashes hot and cold.  _ Fucking great.  _

Bambam leaves them, making Jackson promise that they’re going to get dressed and come on set in the next ten minutes, or Bambam is going to leak naked photos of him. Which, if Jinyoung wasn’t so nervous about just  _ how  _ angry Jaebum actually is about the two of them being late, he’d probably have a lot more questions about.

“Don’t look so freaked out,” Jackson says calmly, yanking up a pair of jeans as Jinyoung sits on the trailer couch and bounces his knee. He attempts to finger comb the mess of his hair, stuck up everywhere and a bit tangled from Jinyoung’s fingers grabbing onto it all night. “He’s going to be mad, yeah, but he’ll get over it. And accidents happen––he’ll understand.”

Jinyoung tries to joke, “are you saying what happened last night was an accident?”

But Jackson, the sweetheart that he is, takes it seriously. He immediately grabs one of Jinyoung’s hands and yanks him up off the couch and into the circle of his arms.

“Of course not,” he says, and kisses him on the cheek. Jinyoung tries not to blush. “That  _ definitely  _ wasn’t an accident.”

Despite the initial joke, Jinyoung finds that he’s still sort of relieved to hear it. After being around the uncertainty that seems to envelope him whenever Jaebum’s around, it’s nice to have some sort of concrete proof that, yes, someone actually likes him. 

After sliding into their shoes and grabbing their coats, Jackson leads him by the hand out of his trailer and toward the back door of the building where their sets are housed. They are very quickly approaching Bambam’s strict ten minute time frame, but Jackson pulls open the back door and ushers him quickly inside and out of the cold. 

The back hallway is connected to the one in the front, in that it’s quite dark and very narrow; it only goes in one direction: forward, toward the front door, with a narrow opening that leads to the sets, which they’ll have to pass through in order to get to wardrobe. Sound carries well in the building, and the both of them wince when the heavy metal door closes with a loud noise in the middle of something being filmed.

The annoyance in Jaebum’s voice is more clear than any other feeling he’s given off in the short time Jinyoung has known him. “Cut!” 

Jackson nudges his ribs with an elbow. “Now or never, huh?” 

The causal murmuring of the crew gets louder and louder as the two of them approach the doorway, whispering to each other under their breath. Jackson makes a lame joke at his own expense that has Jinyoung laughing out loud––the sound of it carries, nearly echoing off the walls of the sets, and he quickly covers his mouth with a hand. 

“How embarrassing,” he mutters.

“Not as embarrassing as this,” Jackson whispers back, guiding him through the mess of cameras and equipment and scattered chairs on the outskirts of the sets. He nods his head in the direction of the police station. “He looks super mad.”

Jinyoung feels… strange, to say the least, when he turns his head to see Jaebum sitting in his director’s chair and watching the two of them as they pick their way through the equipment to get to wardrobe. He’s at once annoyed and guilty––Jaebum’s anger is warranted, of course, because no matter how much Jaebum seems to hate him, Jinyoung prides himself on being a professional and being late is never professional. But as their eyes meet across the short distance, it feels… different. The icy stare is as cold as ever but Jinyoung could swear that there is just the slightest of tightening around his eyes and mouth as he watches them pass with their arms linked.

Regardless, Jinyoung tries to shake it off as he gets thrown into the whirlwind of wardrobe and makeup. Bambam, as he had learned, acts as PA slash stylist––it’s not a surprise, really, seeing as Bambam is probably more fashionable than everyone in the building combined, and it’s also not a surprise that someone so fashion oriented would definitely notice Jinyoung wearing the same clothes as yesterday as he rifles through a rack for an on-screen outfit.

Bambam pulls out a leopard print button up and holds it up against his chest. He clicks his tongue against his teeth and puts it back, saying, “you know, your trailer isn’t that far from his. You couldn’t have gone to change your clothes before coming here?” 

It makes him laugh, more of a friendly observation than an actual chastisement. “I know. But, we were already so late, and you already saw me, so…” 

“So did everyone else, though,” Bambam reminds him. He motions for Jinyoung to take off his shirt and hands him a plain, forest green one to put on. “And you guys walked in together. He knows what that means.”

“Who?”

Bambam makes a face at him. “Director Im.”

“Oh.” Jinyoung isn’t sure if he should care that much or not. He’s not even sure what the point of bringing him up was, if not just to highlight that Jaebum is in charge of the whole project and is monitoring all of them. “Um––”

“Try not to worry too much about him,” Bambam says, patting his shoulder. “That’s just how he is.”

He’s a bit tired of hearing this. “That’s what Jackson said, too.” 

“And it’s true!” Bambam hands him a pair of pants to put on and goes about attacking his hair with a brush while he slips them on. “So, just let it go. If he really wanted you gone, he’d have fired you already.”

_ Then maybe he should if he’s so unhappy,   _ Jinyoung thinks snidely, but doesn't voice this thought out loud. He stands with his eyes squinted as Bambam fusses over him for a bit longer, raising his voice to talk to the other stylist working on Jackson in Thai. He disappears into the rack of Jackson’s clothes for a moment before coming back and handing him a sleek denim jacket. 

“Here,” he says, and pats down the last sticking up bit of his hair before starting to usher him from the room. When they get to the doorway where Jackson is waiting for him, he gives him a thumbs up that says  _ good luck!  _ and makes Jinyoung feel quite the opposite.

They’re back to filming the scene in the police station, since all of the interruptions and their petty on-set spat the day before halted any progress they could have made if Jaebum would just shut up and let him act. Jaebum barely looks up at them as they pass: his eyes flick up from his notebook for the briefest of moments as Jinyoung walks by his chair toward his mark, but they slide away again and don’t return until he and Jackson are both standing there and waiting.

“Alright.” Jaebum says, snapping his notebook shut and tossing it on the empty chair beside him. “Jackson-ah, I want you to start this time.” he looks at Jinyoung, and his voice sounds thin, “Jinyoung-ssi, please pay attention.”

Already? They haven’t even started! But Jinyoung just takes a deep breath and tries not to let it annoy him. He looks away from him and at Jackson, who is watching him with a curious look on his face. 

They have a crucial few moments as the cameras and lights find their positions. “What?” Jinyoung whispers.

“Nothing,” Jackson whispers back, but his eyebrows furrow in the middle. “Something is off, though. He seems...weird.”

“You’re just now noticing?” Jinyoung says, and it’s not really a joke, but Jackson smiles at him anyway. 

“Yeah. I don’t know, he seems upset about something––”

He doesn’t get the chance to find out: Jaebum, from behind him, calls  _ action!  _ in a thin voice. 

With Jackson leading, he feels like it’s going well. The studio is in a perfect hush as they start to film, Jinyoung letting everything on the other side of the cameras wash away as Jackson’s character leads him to a desk with a plastic chair sat opposite to it. He prepares himself for the outburst that’s going to come, the dreadful surprise when Jackson’s En Lai tells his Jaewon that his brother has been killed in jail. Every uncertainty, every strange feeling, even the anger he draws on, starting to sit down in the chair and his hands start to shake––

“Cut!” Jaebum shouts, startling him. Jinyoung, halfway sitting, jumps and misses the chair at the last minute to fall on his ass. “Jinyoung-ssi,” he says cooly, still so formal with him in contrast to the familiar way he calls Jackson, “you’re getting emotional too early.” 

He lets Jackson help him up and moves the chair back, taking a deep breath before looking up. Jaebum is sitting with one leg crossed over the other, hands on his knee, looking almost stiff and awkward. It’s weird, sure, but Jinyoung can’t for the life of him pinpoint what about this Jackson found strange. Isn’t he always wound this tight?

“I’m sorry, is the character not supposed to feel anxious that he’s in his brother’s former police station and anticipating bad news?”

Jaebum shakes his head. “It’s not that. It’s just too early.” he sighs like this is supposed to be common knowledge. “Again.”

So they run it again. 

This time, Jinyoung manages to sit down, at least. He bounces his leg in an anxiety that isn’t entirely fabricated, which must set Jaebum off, because in the middle of Jinyoung’s line he calls  _ cut  _ again.

“Stop bouncing your leg.”

“Seriously?” Jinyoung groans, unable to help it. “You’re really going to criticize _that?”_

Jaebum’s stare is hard, the tension from earlier more clear around his eyes and mouth as they look at each other. “It’s distracting.” 

“If that’s so distracting to you, then maybe you should see someone about that,” Jinyoung spits. 

“And what exactly are you implying, Mr. Park?”

Jinyoung laughs bitterly.  _ Mr. Park?  _ So they’ve regressed into surnames now? Jinyoung knows he shouldn’t argue like this; he should just take the direction and move on, but it drives him  _ crazy  _ that Jaebum thinks directing like this actually works. It must, he guesses, since his films are so good, but a part of him wonders how anything gets done when this is how he is. No real direction, just,  _ stop, I don’t like this, do it again.  _ How the hell is Jinyoung supposed to work off that while also letting Jaebum talk to him like he’s a dog?

He won’t. He absolutely won’t. 

“I’m implying that maybe you should see a doctor if you’re distracted so easily by a  _ leg,”  _ he says, and again feels that burn of satisfaction in his chest when Jaebum’s jaw shifts and knots beneath his ear. He hears Jackson sigh beside him, all  _ Oh, Jinyoung _ again, but with more disappointment. He doesn’t care, though. The pissed off look on Jaebum’s face is more than worth it.

“Let’s call break for lunch. Meet back here in an hour,” and for this he looks right at Jinyoung, “and don’t be late.”

Directions given, Jaebum is the first person to leave, letting the back door slam behind him.

Jackson sighs again. “You piss him off more than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

But Jinyoung is angry, too. “Good,” he says flippantly, nearly jerking his arm away in frustration when Jackson reaches for him. If Jackson is hurt by this, he doesn’t show it. “Let’s just go get some lunch, huh? I just—“ Jinyoung lets out a heavy breath. “I just need to cool down, and so does he. And then it’ll be fine.”

“If you say so,” Jackson says, looking skeptical. Jinyoung can’t blame him. 

The food tent doesn’t have any seating inside it, and the two of them end up sitting at one of the wooden picnic tables set up outside the front flap amidst all the others like an outdoor cafeteria. A few of their costars join them—one of them Jinyoung knows, Kang Younghyun, from a drama he’d been on, but the other is an actor he’s only heard of in passing from the people in his circle. They’re both friendly, though, and Jinyoung finds himself enjoying the break from another stressful shoot. The guys make him laugh and Jackson’s arm across his back with fingers curled almost possessively in the belt loops of his opposite hip keeps him warm. 

_ If only the whole experience could be like this,  _ Jinyoung thinks wistfully, joining Jackson’s cheery wave at Mark as he passes quickly by the tent on his way back into the studio.  _ If only he was different— _

A shadow falls over the table at Jinyoung’s side. Younghyun, who had been in the middle of some anecdote or another about Jaebum at a wrap party, immediately falls quiet and starts to turn a chagrined shade of pink all the way to his temples.

“Hello, directornim,” he says, and Jinyoung looks up to see Jaebum looking at  _ him.  _ “Don’t mind us, just—um, having lunch.”

But Jaebum doesn’t answer. He glances at Younghyun briefly, like he’s trying to convey something wordlessly, and it must work because Younghyun only reddens further and looks down at the table. A steady. palpable tension starts to build when Jinyoung meets his eyes to find them cold and locked on his own. 

Jackson, seeming to sense the tension, clears his throat like he’s trying to diffuse it. It seems to say,  _ can’t you stop arguing just for thirty minutes while we eat?  _ despite no argument starting. 

Yet. 

“Would you like to sit with us, hyung?” Jackson asks, nodding at the empty spot next to Younghyun across the rain warped wooden tabletop. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind scooting over—“

Jaebum, however, interrupts him like he hadn’t even spoken. _Seems to be his specialty,_ Jinyoung thinks snidely.

“You,” he says, and barely moves to indicate Jinyoung beyond glaring a hole through his forehead. 

“What about me?”

Again, that tightening around his eyes and mouth. Jinyoung wants to ask and doesn’t.

“Come with me,” Jaebum says, voice flat, but still that hidden edge that Jackson had mentioned earlier. “Just you,” he corrects, when Jackson starts to stand at Jinyoung’s side. 

And even though he shouldn’t, and even though Jaebum sees and tightens the knot at his jaw just a fraction more. Jinyoung rolls his eyes and stands up to follow him. 

“Don’t wait for me,” Jinyoung says, aware that Jaebum has stopped a couple feet ahead and is looking back, waiting for him with visible impatience. “Just come back to meet me on set, yeah?”

Jackson nods and looks concerned. Jinyoung would be worried by that if he wasn’t so pissed off; but he is so he just waves goodbye and slowly follows the broad line of Jaebum’s shoulders as he leads him back into the quiet studio. 

Without the rest of the cast and crew, the sets are eerily noiseless. There’s no sound from outside; the walls are soundproof to allow for maximum audio quality on the inside, and for a single morbid second he wonders what he should do in the off chance Jaebum attacks him out of anger. Jaebum hasn’t proved to be a violent person, but Jinyoung has seen the cellphone footage of him punching the lights out of a rogue club bouncer who grabbed the ass of one of his actors at a wrap party a few years ago. The man has a mean left hook, and the thought of their isolation in the quiet set miles apart from their first makes him linger back a few feet as Jaebum goes to his chair. 

When he’s sitting, he looks at Jinyoung with that wiped clean expression that makes Jinyoung’s insides feel like so much soured milk. How can someone so cold and inexpressive still make Jinyoung feel so anxious with just a glance?

He sighs. “Why are we in here? Do you expect me to apologize—“

“I want you to run your lines to me,” Jaebum says, voice flat, picking up the heavy script from the empty chair next to his and flipping through it. When Jinyoung doesn’t respond right away, sort of dumbfounded, he looks up with a sharp, handsome eyebrow raised. Jinyoung wishes he wouldn’t do that. 

“Um—?” Jinyoung pauses. “You want me to run lines?”

Jaebum looks away. “Don’t worry about Jackson’s part. Just run your lines to me.”

“You want me to run my lines to you with nothing to go off of?”

“You know them, don’t you?”

His tone, while not fluctuating much, still sounds accusatory. Jinyoung feels his face trying to redden in aggravation and tries to swallow it back. “Of course I do.”

Jaebum watches him from beneath his lashes, head tipped forward like a cat stalking a mouse. “Then run them to me.”

So he does. He isn’t sure what Jaebum is looking for, exactly—with no one to bounce back Jackson’s lines to him, it sounds like he’s talking to himself. The emotion is still raw, dredged up from a place of pain, Jinyoung’s own well. And even as he feels that spark, that little fire that begins in his heart as the words come faster and the tears start to well in his eyes, he can feel the heavy weight of Jaebum’s stare: that hot, laser gaze, focused on the center of him like it could burn a hole. Their eyes meet the few times Jinyoung feels brave enough to look at him as he shouts his lines to what feels like a brick wall and every time his stomach drops further into his guts. 

Finally, the hole in his middle as Jaebum watches him with his chin in his hand becomes too wide. He gasps in the middle of a line and lets it break. 

“Directornim,” he says, feeling a bit delirious from the emotion and the weight of Jaebum’s eyes on him. If his stomach is warm like it had been at the club, he pushes it away. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Jaebum’s eye contact breaks. He looks down into the script open in his lap and flips through a couple pages. 

“That’s not a line, is it?”

A...joke? Did he just tell a joke? Jinyoung snorts in both surprise and humor, but mostly just surprise. If he’s not mistaken, the corner of Jaebum’s handsome mouth curls upward, just a tick, like he’d been about to smile.  _ Just _ a tick. Jinyoung feels lightheaded.

_ Had he been about to smile? _

Instead of apologizing or even acknowledging the tension between them, Jaebum flips the script closed in his lap and looks at him. 

“I know you can do better.”

He’d be stunned if this wasn’t so typical of him by now. Jinyoung really hates being disappointed that Jaebum is who he is and not the person Jinyoung hoped he would be. 

“If you’d let me finish my lines, directornim, you’d see how good I am.” 

Jaebum blinks; looks thoughtful for a moment. The circle frames have made a reappearance on the sharpness of his face, counterbalanced by a black hoodie four times too large and stuffed underneath a denim jacket not unlike the one Jinyoung is wearing. He crosses one ripped denim-clad leg over the other. 

“It’s not that.” 

“Then what could it possibly be?” Jinyoung scoffs. 

“It lacks depth.” 

Jinyoung, surprised, openly blanches. His tone is a little ruder than necessary when he says, “are you joking?”

“I don’t joke about my films, Jinyoung-ssi,” Jaebum bites, and, just like that, the atmosphere changes. 

It was already tense, because any time Jinyoung is alone with him, the air compresses into something unbearable. But now—some look has shuttered over Jaebum’s features, unreadable, that same tightening at his eyes and mouth he’d seen earlier. Had Jinyoung done something to piss him off in the ten seconds since he’d rudely asked _ are you joking?  _ His heartbeat stutters and his confidence wavers. 

“I—“ 

But whatever has come over Jaebum, it will not wait for Jinyoung to find his footing. Jaebum levels with him a look and asks, 

“Did you sleep with Jackson last night?” 

Jinyoung’s heart stops. He freezes where he’d been lightly swaying on his feet and looks shocked. He has to have misheard, right? There’s no way—

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Did you sleep with Jackson last night?” Same tone, same look. Jaebum’s face is an open book in a language he can’t read. 

Now his face starts to burn—he’s not embarrassed, not by any means, but the absolute  _ gall  _ of Jaebum to even ask makes his ears burn indignantly. Utterly offended and  feeling a bit nervous under the weight of Jaebum’s heavy stare, Jinyoung scoffs. 

“Is that even appropriate for you to ask? It’s none of your business!”

And now, Jaebum’s face changes: he shifts in his chair looking visibly agitated. There must be something about the rude way Jinyoung responds to him in his indignation that makes Jaebum supremely angry for him to react so openly like this, and he finds himself glad for it. 

“Actually,” he says, and his voice has roughened. Jinyoung’s brain way down low stuck in their interaction from the club screams something about how sexy it is, but the utter embarrassment of constantly being called out by him in front of everyone and then pulled aside to be grilled about his personal life shoots it back down into nothingness. “It is my business, because this is  _ my  _ film, and  _ my  _ film set. Did you sleep with him?” 

Jinyoung can’t believe the _ nerve  _ of him. What had Bambam said?  _ He knows what that means.  _ Is this why he brought it up? Because Jaebum is nosy and controlling? Jinyoung’s heart squeezes in anger. 

“That’s incredibly inappropriate for you to ask,” he spits, fists clenched at his sides, “but as a matter of fact, yes. I did.”

Silence. 

He had expected Jaebum to chastise him, something about how they should try to remain professional and not hook up with each other like unruly teenagers at a part time job, but no such chastisement comes. Instead, a staring contest ensues much like their first in the club: Jaebum’s dark eyes are heavy and hot on his face, with Jinyoung’s equally as hard and angry as he looks back and tries to tamp down on the fluttering in his chest. Jaebum’s jaw knots underneath his ear and the actual, visible emotion that passes across his face even momentarily makes Jinyoung burn with satisfaction, as fleeting as it is. 

As quickly as it began, it ends. Jaebum’s face clears like a slate wiped clean and he looks down at his phone where he’d pulled it from his pocket and into his lap. Without saying anything else to Jinyoung, standing in front of him and feeling weirdly shunned despite Jaebum being the one at fault, calls Mark on speaker. 

His voice has returned to the timeless commanding one he uses on set for only Jinyoung, when they aren’t getting into an argument. “Round up everyone and have them come back in,” Jaebum says when Mark answers, mumbling  _ hello?  _ with his mouth full. “We’re going to start again in ten minutes.”

He hangs up and the silence between them is deafening: Jinyoung wishes he could understand, but nothing about their fight makes any sense to him. Jaebum wanted him in here to run lines, only to chastise him without words for sleeping with his costar? Or was that his plan all along—to admonish him for breaking a rule that had never been set under the guise of wanting Jinyoung to do better? His fists clench harder and his heart, already so heavy from the disappointment surrounding every aspect of Im Jaebum’s personality, sinks a little further when Jaebum looks up at him with that cold, cleared out look, so different from that subtle fire in his eyes just before. 

“Good,” he says, but his tone says far from it. “Use that emotion when we film.”

And even without saying goodbye, it is clear as a dismissal. Trying not to show the obvious confused emotion on his face, Jinyoung just turns around to find his mark on set and stand there as the rest of the crew trickle back in, not once being acknowledged by Jaebum in his chair. He can’t help but feel that unless the cameras are on or Jaebum is directly criticizing him, that Jinyoung doesn’t even exist. 

_ Don’t be too disappointed,  _ he hears Taecyeon say in his head.  _ You knew he doesn’t like very many people.  _

So he had been prepared, of course, to not be liked by the director of his dreams. He had been prepared to get to know the man behind the movies. But he had not been prepared to be _disappointed._ Jinyoung lets this unwanted disappointment wash over him for the briefest of moments before he buries it in the graveyard of his chest. 

But Im Jaebum the person is nothing like Jinyoung had hoped, and, for whatever reason, he feels his heart break, just a little bit. 

  
  


**

 

Upon arriving at Jackson’s trailer that night, he slams the door and doesn't bother with a greeting. “Fuck!” 

Jackson’s eyes widen. He’s sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, watching a video on his phone and looking the picture of comfort. Jinyoung feels a little bad for storming in and disturbing what he’s sure was a nice, post-filming peace.

“Hello to you, too, Jinyoung-ah,” he says, but with a smile, and Jinyoung knows that he isn’t angry.

“Sorry,” he sighs, coming over to plop down heavily next to Jackson on the couch and shed his jacket. He folds it over one arm before leaning back and resting his head against the windowsill behind him. “I’m just––I’m so  _ mad,  _ hyung.”

“I know,” he says, and locks his phone. He tosses it onto the table next to Jinyoung and turns to him a bit, leaning his cheek in his palm and his elbow on the back of the couch. “You seemed really antsy when we all came back to set. I’m surprised he tried to film for as long as he did, anyway, with how upset you both seemed.”

Now Jinyoung’s eyes widen.  _ “Both  _ of us? He didn’t look upset at all!” Jinyoung thinks backward, but comes up with nothing. His face had changed for a moment at the end there, sure, but he wouldn’t qualify that as  _ upset.  _ And surely not enough to warrant it being noticed by Jackson. “He didn’t care.” 

Seems to Jinyoung that he doesn’t care about anything except his movies, but he doesn’t say this.

“Hmm. I don’t think you were looking hard enough.” 

“I don’t have to look at all. I can feel him staring a hateful hole through me wherever I am in the room,” Jinyoung mumbles. 

Jackson nudges his shoulder a little and lets a small smile pull up the corner of his mouth. “Poetic.”

“Shut up,” he says, but he smiles, too. It drops a moment later, though, and Jackson seems to notice that he’s having a hard time keeping the mood up.

“What happened?” he asks softly, resting his other hand on Jinyoung’s knee. Warmth radiates from his palm and Jinyoung just stares at it for a moment in wonder: interesting how someone like Jackson could be this human embodiment of warmth, like a person-shaped sun, and still get along with someone like Jaebum, colder than a glacier. Unwillingly, he thinks of what Jaebum’s hands on him would feel like, if they'd be as cold as him--when he grabbed his arms that time, on set, they were warm, but--

“Jinyoung-ah,” Jackson says, breaking him out of the dangerous spiral his thoughts were about to become. 

He sighs. He’s not sure that it’s really worth talking about--he’s angry, sure, but that’s been such a common theme in working with Im Jaebum so far that he wonders if there’s really anything to say. Jinyoung should have listened to Taecyeon; he should have maybe prepared himself a little better for the reality of not being liked by Jaebum, despite wanting so desperately to be. Jinyoung feels heartbroken in a way that he shouldn’t--what does he even have to feel heartbroken over? No matter how many interviews he watched or read, he didn’t really  _ know  _ Jaebum. But perhaps he had convinced himself that he had and when the reality is so much different from what he had pictured it feels, irrationally or otherwise, a little like loss.

Despite this, the irrationality of discussing it, the words come, anyway:

“He just--” where does he even start? “He’s so critical. And I get that he’s picky, and I get that he has a vision. I know. I’ve  _ watched  _ his visions come to life. There’s a reason he’s as popular as he is, and I get that. But--the way he talks to people, the way he talks to  _ me--”  _

“I will say, he is harder on you than I’ve ever seen him be on anyone,” Jackson agrees, nodding. “I mean, he has fired people on the spot for not living up to his expectations, but he’s never kept someone on and just continued to ice them out.”

“When he pulled me into the studio alone earlier, he made me run lines to him.”

Jackson cocks an eyebrow, handsome thing, and Jinyoung wishes so badly for this just to be  _ over.  _ He needs a distraction from the whirlwind of emotion that Im Jaebum conjures up in him and he hope that Jackson takes the hint when Jinyoung shifts and throws a leg over his lap. He swallows, hard, eyes a little surprised at Jinyoung’s sudden change in mood.

“Jinyoung––” he stutters, hands coming to rest on the backs of his thighs, touching lightly like he’s not sure he should. “We don’t––we can just talk, if you need to, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he says softly. He runs his palms down Jackson’s shoulders over the button up shirt he’s wearing and looks at his neck, eyes unfocused. “He told me it wasn’t good enough. That I lack depth, and I can do better.” 

Jackson’s breath hitches and his fingers tighten when Jinyoung’s fingertips play idly at the button near his neck. “Do you believe him?” 

“Hmm.” Jinyoung hums and doesn’t reply for a few moments, instead focusing on slowly unbuttoning each of the white buttons on Jackson’s dark shirt; he bites his bottom lip and pushes each individual one backward through their holes. 

Does he believe Jaebum? It would be hard not to, considering he’s the director, but… part of him wonders if Jackson might be onto something. _ I will say, he is harder on you than I’ve ever seen him be on anyone,  _ isn’t that what he said? What could the reason be? More than anything, this is the question he wants the answer to. More than why he stares so much, more than what he’d been thinking when they met at the club, more than what he thought of his role in Lee Minho’s movie. He just wants to know,  _ why me?  _

“I think,” Jackson says breathlessly, pausing to groan in the back of his throat when Jinyoung pops the last button of his shirt and pushes the sleeves down to the middle of his arms. “I think you should be honored.”

But the feeling, whatever it is, anger or hurt or something else, has already started to pass. He lets the feeling of Jackson’s hands sliding up his waist underneath his shirt eclipse the battered beating of his disappointed heart, dumping the emotions down the well of his chest to draw on later like he does with everything else. It can’t hurt now, so he will let it hurt later, when he needs it to. 

“And why’s that?” he purrs, fingertips trailing down Jackson’s bare chest, grinning and biting his lip when Jackson tips his head back on the couch and pulls Jinyoung down harder into his lap. 

With a gasp, Jackson bites out, “because, usually he just fires people on the spot. I’ve never––oh, fuck––” he breathes, hips shifting as Jinyoung readjusts and rocks his weight in his lap, “––I’ve never seen him take someone in for a one on one with him before.”

It’s clear by the lust glossing over Jackson’s dark eyes that the conversation is slowly drawing to a close; he’s grateful for this, a little tired of always feeling so victimized by Jaebum and his penchant for one-sided staring contests.  _ This  _ is what filming should be like: fun, mostly carefree, getting to know his co-stars and just what makes a certain one moan his name under his breath.

Jinyoung leans down, hips rolling in Jackson’s lap, and puts his lips to the stretched out column of his neck. Before the conversation dies completely beneath the sounds of Jackson working him open and sliding inside him, though, Jinyoung thinks it’s important to mention one last detail: against his neck, lips wet and warm and suckling, he murmurs,

“He asked if we slept together.”

Jackson gasps. Half from Jinyoung’s teeth on his earlobe and half from surprise, he lets go of Jinyoung’s hip for a moment to push him back by the shoulder to look him in the face. He looks surprised, of course, but his cheeks are flushed pink and his eyelids are heavy, looking more turned on than anything. Jinyoung puts the back of his hand to his mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Did you say yes?”

He doesn’t ask in a mean way; Jinyoung moves his hand from his mouth to trace a single fingertip down the length of Jackson’s chest between his pecs. He watches Jackson bite his lip and close his eyes like he doesn’t care about the answer anymore and cares more about the fingers that Jinyoung sticks down the front of his jeans.

“Of course I did.” Jinyoung hiccups on a soft noise when Jackson’s hands slide down the curve of his back to the swell of his ass and squeeze, pulling him forward. “Should I not have?” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Jackson breathes out heavily. Eyes still closed, he spreads his legs a little wider and pulls Jinyoung down harder against his hardening cock over his jeans. Jinyoung’s subconscious reminds him unhelpfully that maybe there is something to be said for the two of them talking about Jaebum while feeling each other up, but he quickly shoves it down in favor of bracing himself with one hand on Jackson’s bare shoulder to grind in his lap. “Just–– _ fuck,  _ Jinyoung––was he pissed?” 

Jinyoung moans a little, his own vision starting to swim with a lusty pink mist. “If he was, would it matter?” 

Underneath him, Jackson laughs through a broken off groan and a stuttered breath as Jinyoung works his belt undone. “Yeah, I’d kinda like to keep my job, you know?” 

He smiles, and laughs a little too, dropping it a moment later when he roughly yanks Jackson’s zipper down. “Don’t worry,” he says, and the tone of his voice conveys that the subject can be dropped now, focusing on each other instead of having a conversation about their asshole director. “He wasn’t mad. He just said to use our energy on set.”

And with that, Jackson just nods; he leans up to cover Jinyoung’s mouth with his own and part his lips with an impatient tongue. Jinyoung breathes a sigh into his mouth, of pleasure and relief, and lets the feeling of Jackson’s hands on his body sweep the greasiness of Im Jaebum’s dislike away. 

 

**

 

Gracefully, the day after is a break from shooting. which means Jinyoung can escape from the impending winter of Jaebum’s personality for a while. After waking up in Jackson’s trailer again, he kissed him goodbye on the cheek while Jackson lazily turned over in bed and went back to sleep. He hopes that its early enough that no one is awake to see him creeping from the door of Jackson’s trailer to his own; it’s not that he’s ashamed, or even that it’s a secret, but he’d rather not have to feel obliged to answer the question again.  _ Especially  _ after how Jaebum handled it.

In the middle of changing his clothes, Jinyoung scoffs in annoyance under his breath.  _ Asshole.  _

As he packs his important things into a sleek, pale leather messenger bag, he wonders what Yugyeom is going to think about it all. They’re meeting at the coffee shop where he works for warm drinks before deciding what to do with the rest of their night: Jinyoung has a feeling Yugyeom will ask him to go party and the early set time for tomorrow has Jinyoung reluctant to bring it up. Mostly because it’s hard to say no.

_ Maybe Jaebum will be there again,  _ his subconscious unhelpfully supplies, and Jinyoung makes a face at himself in the mirror while he finger combs the disheveled mess of his hair.

“Who cares if he’s there?” he mutters, and then realizes that he’s talking to himself again, so he quickly exits the tiny bathroom of his trailer and slams the door.

The weather is so much colder than it has been lately—he’d gone back in for a scarf before he left, and the wind that kicks up to bounce off the cold cement sidewalks make his face hurt a little bit as he slowly makes his way to the nearest subway station. He could have driven or even called Taecyeon to drive him, he supposes, but in spite of the cold weather, the walk and the subsequent quiet subway ride gives him plenty of time to think.

Icy wind follows him down the concrete stairs of the subway station. What does he know so far? Just that Jaebum is an asshole, he guesses. But—that’s not quite it, is it? He’s seen the way Jaebum interacts with Mark. With Jackson. Even with the PAs and the camera crews, sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing. Isn’t it possible to be someone likable but still be an asshole?

The other possibility, one that Jinyoung likes significantly less and yet brings up the most questions and the most confusion is that maybe it’s just  _ him.  _

He leans against a pillar to wait for the subway with his eyes closed. Jinyoung doesn’t necessarily want that to be true; it would be better for his heart if it wasn't. He had seen Jaebum he hard on some of his other costars. the way he talked to them, not so much demanding as it is just…  _ cold.  _ Unfeeling. Like there’s a distinct disconnect between his heart and his brain when he says things like  _ I know you can do better than that, so why aren’t you trying?  _ And, he thinks, eyes still closed even as the wind whips passed him as the train arrives, he had seen them lie down and  _ take it.  _ They had been so starstruck by him, grateful for the chance to be in his movie, that they just lied down and took his verbal lashing like it was something worthy to be punished over. Jinyoung doesn’t do that.  _ Won’t  _ do that. From what’s he’s seen (and heard), he’s really the only person who has ever stood up and fought back against Jaebum’s hurtful way of directing and still lived to feel the repercussions of it. 

_ So is that why he hates me?  _ Jinyoung thinks. A tiny old woman sitting down seems to recognize him and pats the empty seat beside her, urging him to sit down. He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket and sighs into the scarf wrapped around his neck. 

_ Because I fight back? He hates me just for that?  _

It makes sense, he guesses. His other theory is that Jaebum  _ is  _ just an asshole with an inflated self-sense of genius that occasionally gets along with people in the vicinity of him. 

But then…  _ why all the staring?  _

Jinyoung closes his eyes and leans his head back against the window to allow his thoughts to wander. Part of him is annoyed that he’s thinking about Jaebum so much on his day off from set, but it is quickly drowned under the memories that dredge up of Jaebum’s intensely dark eyes laser focused on the center of his chest. 

It could be nothing. It could be little more than a poor choice of a place to look as he spaces out, but, Jinyoung doesn’t think that’s it. His uncomfortably deep staring is rarely ever unfocused or fuzzy like he’s contemplating, his stares are often conscious and heavy, like he can see through the skin and muscle and bone of him down to the furthest part of his soul. Or it could be  _ something:  _ the kind of something that it held the night at the club, when it stirred up a warmth in Jinyoung’s guts with the heat of it. 

_ The kind of something….  _

The blaring of the overhead speakers announcing the arrival at his station interrupts the dangerous path bus thoughts had been about to turn down, and he opens his eyes with a sigh of relief. It’s bad enough that he can’t stop thinking about their interactions, analyzing every one for some sort of clue as to what Jaebum is thinking and what the fuck he wants, and worse still that he and Jackson had been discussing him while Jinyoung tried to focus on getting Jackson naked. The last thing he needs right now is the cut out the middleman and to go straight into thinking about Jaebum…  _ that  _ way. 

He shivers, and not just from the cold. 

The coffee shop where he’s meeting Yugyeom is also the one that Yugyeom works at—when Jinyoung pulls the heavy glass door open by the cylindrical wooden handle, he’s blasted by a draft of hot air. He blinks into it and Yugyeom’s voice calls to him from behind the counter:

“Hyung! Sit wherever, and I’ll be done in a second!” 

Jinyoung gestures dismissively at him and weaves through the scattered square tables to find somewhere to sit by the window. He’s not totally immune to the gasps of surprise when people realize that  _ Park Jinyoung  _ is currently gracing them all with his presence, but the very obvious clicking of phone cameras does still make him feel kind of weird. He just keeps his eyes forward, though, waving a silent greeting to their other barista friends behind the counter. 

As Jinyoung is settling down at a small bistro table in the far corner up against the furthest front window, he hears Yugyeom’s voice rise and address the whole shop in a tone fitting for a scolding mother:

“Excuse me! Read the sign, please!” Jinyoung bites back a smile as he watches Yugyeom impatiently point to a large, printed sign underneath the menu behind him that reads:

**PLEASE DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH OTHER PATRONS, ESPECIALLY FAMOUS GUESTS, UNLESS GIVEN EXPLICIT PERMISSION. INDIVIDUALS CAUGHT DOING SO AFTER BEING GIVEN A WARNING WILL BE BANNED. THANK YOU.**

Yugyeom huffs. “There. You’ve all been warned. Now let Park Jinyoung-ssi enjoy this coffee I’m going to make him in peace, thank you!”

Jinyoung is a bit embarrassed by the attention it brings to him being there, _and_ the awkward silence that descends over the shop beneath the steady pop music playing softly over the speakers, but he does appreciate Yugyeom’s looking out for him. He knew this kind of thing would follow him when he got famous, but he’s not required to like it. Having an establishment look out for his interests as a regular human being is pretty nice. Even if his best friend shouts at all the customers to uphold it.

After a few minutes of chattering behind the counter, Yugyeom finally comes over and joins him with his apron tossed over one shoulder. The all black of his uniform is a stark contrast to the white and bright grey of Jinyoung’s outfit, which Yugyeom comments on in lieu of a conversation starter. 

“You look like a hipster church pastor.”

Jinyoung makes a face and accepts the coffee Yugyeom slides across the table to him; he leans his face over the steam curling off the surface of the dark liquid and inhales.

“Thanks, I guess. You look like a hipster coffee shop worker—oh, wait.”

Yugyeom fake laughs and then feigns like he’s going to kick Jinyoung’s ankle. 

“I thought you didn’t work today,” Jinyoung says mildly, looking at Yugyeom over the time of his cup before taking a sip that scalds his lips a little. He knows that, eventually, Yugyeom is going to ask him about how filming is going and, more specifically, how he’s getting along with Jaebum. He’d like to avoid that topic for as long as possible. 

“I don’t,” he replies, settling in the wooden chair with his long legs stretched out beneath the small table. “But I had my uniform in the locker room and when I got here to wait for you, they asked me to help. I was really early,” he adds a shrug for emphasis, “so I changed really quick and clocked in for a bit. I’m done, though, and they gave me the day off tomorrow in return.” 

If that’s the case, Jinyoung definitely knows Yugyeom is going to ask him to party, probably; and if he’s honest with himself he would gladly rather do that than even think about Jaebum. Early set time be damned, it would be nice to stop thinking himself in circles over Jaebum for a while. 

Before Yugyeom has the chance to say anything, Jinyoung quickly puts his coffee down and, in a feeble attempt to keep the conversation from steering toward him, asks, “how’s your mom?”

It doesn’t work. Yugyeom grins at him; he puts his own drink down and folds his long arms over his skinny chest with a smirk on his face a mile wide. Jinyoung’s heart sinks. 

“Nice try, hyung. You think I’d want to talk about my mom when we have  _ your  _ problems to talk about?”

“I was unaware your mom was a problem.” 

Yugyeom honks a laugh and playfully nudges Jinyoung’s knee with his own where they’re nearly touching. “Shut up. Seriously, how’s it going?”

He sighs. Might as well get it over with. 

“It’s fine,” he says, which must sound as unconvincing as he thinks it does by the way Yugyeom makes a face at him like  _ yeah, okay.  _ “I’m serious! It’s fine.” 

“When you say ‘fine’, you say it like it means ‘terrible‘.” 

“It’s not terrible, though.” Jinyoung crosses his arms and leans back, looking absently out the window. “It could be better, sure. But it’s not bad. I like my costars a lot.” 

Yugyeom cuts in. “I still can’t believe you’re working with Wang fucking Jackson, hyung. The most famous actor in Asia and  _ you’re working with him.”  _

Jinyoung tries not to smile; he picks up his coffee and hides one behind the rim when he says:

“I slept with him, too” 

At first. there’s no reaction. Yugyeom just stares at him, face blank like he’s still processing Jinyoung saying  _ I slept with him  _ about the most famous actor they both currently know. He can almost picture a circling halo of cartoon stars above his head while his face slowly starts to change with the realization. 

Yugyeom, with a noise somewhere between a squeal and a shout, nearly leaps out of his chair. “Hyung! You  _ what?”  _

“We slept together,” he says, casually, trying not to make a big deal out of it. He still feels a little giddy about it, sure, but… for whatever reason, Jinyoung just can’t shake the feeling that Jaebum gives him. He at least tries not to dwell on it though.  _ “Are  _ sleeping together. I’m not sure how long it’ll last. But, yeah, we’re getting along great.” 

Yugyeom’s face is bright and open with amazement. He settles back down in his chair after nearly thrashing with excitement. “That’s—holy shit, hyung. You have the whole world at your fingertips now! You know that, right?”

Jinyoung laughs. “You make it sound like I’m gonna rob him.” 

“You could.”

He slaps the top of Yugyeom’s hand where he can just barely reach it.

“I’m not going to rob him, you asshole.” 

“Speaking of assholes,” Yugyeom says. waggling his eyebrows. It’s a gamble what asshole he’s talking about, and either way it’s a very uncomfortable segue. “How’s Jaebum?”

“Ugh.” All he can do is make a noise and then stare into the swirling darkness of his coffee where it still steams a bit on the table. Where does he even start?

“It’s whatever,” Jinyoung replies, and he thinks he maybe sounds a little too wistful and tries to reign it in. “He’s an asshole. I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“He hired you—“

“Everyone says that, but I don’t think that’s really relevant. I’ve seen the way he treats his assistant, and even Jackson. It’s like he’s a different person.” 

Yugyeom chews on his lip to think for a moment. “Maybe he’s just trying to keep it professional?”

“He asked me if Jackson and I slept together after chastising me about not giving him enough depth,” Jinyoung says, and makes a face. “Even Jackson said I seem to piss him off more than anyone that’s ever been in his set. It seems childish, but it seems like he’s…” Jinyoung gestures vaguely. “Like he’s  _ picking  _ on me.”

“That’s very junior high of him.” Yugyeom seems to consider this for a moment, then says: “Does he really seem the type to act that way? I mean, I’ve seen his interviews, too. He seems really well-spoken and intelligent.”

“That’s the thing, though,” Jinyoung sighs. He has come to this revelation several times already, looping back to it like his thoughts about Im Jaebum are stuck in a rotating door. “It’s just—sometimes people aren’t who we think they are.”

“And that’s the case here? Is that what you mean?”

Jinyoung plucks thoughtfully at the rolled paper rim of his coffee cup, looking at the rich dark of the liquid instead of at Yugyeom. “Yeah. I think—I think I stupidly had this image built of him in my head. That he was just this—that he was this quiet genius. And I mean, he is, he’s quiet and he’s a genius. But you know what I mean.”

Yugyeom, from the corner of his eye, catches on and nods. “Okay, yeah. I see. Like—it was a romanticized version of him in your head almost, right?” 

Something about hearing the word  _ romance  _ in direct correlation with his thoughts about Jaebum makes him feel vaguely ill for a reason he’s not quite sure that he can identify. It makes him physically cringe and Yugyeom laughs. 

“Don’t act so scandalized. You know what I meant.” Even without looking, Jinyoung knows Yugyeom’s dark eyebrow raises with a matching mischievous smirk. “Unless you meant something else—“

“No!” Jinyoung interrupts. “No, no. Absolutely not.”

“Methinks thou doth protest too much.”

“Well methinks you’re a dumbass,” Jinyoung bites, and blushes when Yugyeom laughs. “Seriously. Yes, I know what you meant, and I agree. Like I had this… indie darling version of him in my head and when he wasn’t like that at all, it broke some piece of my brain, you know? To see that he was so different behind the camera than what I was expecting.”

It feels good to say this out loud—his thoughts feel a little more organized, in a way, to know that it really was just his warped perception of Jaebum before meeting him that was making him feel so disappointed. 

Nothing else. 

“So what you’re saying is that your crush died on him a little?”

Jinyoung makes a face but doesn’t necessarily disagree. He had an actor crush on Jaebum’s films for forever. “Yeah. A lot, actually.” this feels somewhat not true; he thinks Yugyeom agrees but the younger just keeps watching him and waits for him to finish. “It’s just how he is. He’s just an asshole.”

“Nothing special about it?”

“Nope.”

“Great,” Yugyeom says. He lifts his hips to fish his phone out of his front pocket; he scrolls for a moment before finding something bringing it up to show Jinyoung. 

Jinyoung shouldn’t be surprised—the photo pulled up is a colorful digital flier for Neon Milk, advertising a DJ set later that night for someone that sounds vaguely familiar. He knew Yugyeom was going to ask him to go out, regardless of his early set time tomorrow and—even though part of him knows it might be a little reckless, he decides that after dealing with Jaebum he deserves to let loose a little. If he’s expected to continue being subjected to the torture of working with him, then one night out at the club can’t hurt. 

“My friend has a set. Wanna go?” Yugyeom wiggles his eyebrows. “I’ll pay.”

“No you won’t,” Jinyoung says, but relents. He sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go. Do you mind if I invite Jackson? No promises he’ll come, but—“

Yugyeom, already standing and waiting for Jinyoung to get up like the club is already open (it’s not—they have  _ hours  _ to prepare, and Jinyoung considers doing some line study to pass the time), scoffs like he’s offended.

_ “Mind?  _ Do you think I would  _ mind  _ if you invited the most famous person you know to hang out with me?”

“And _me,_ asshole,” Jinyoung laughs, slapping his arm. “He’s going to come for me, anyway.”

“Oh I’m sure he already has.”

Jinyoung feels his face turn bright red; the patrons around them are definitely listening even if they’re pretending not to, and he slaps Yugyeom’s arm again harder.

“Yugyeom! Shut up!”

“Whatever. Let’s go,” he says, and pulls Jinyoung along with a smile.

 

**

 

The club was, in retrospect, both a good and bad idea. 

The _good_ thing is that he’s with Yugyeom and Jackson, who did make time to come. Jinyoung emphasizes that he didn’t have to since they have an early set time, but Jackson seemed eager to hang out with him and get to know Jinyoung’s closest friend. Yugyeom, of course, was nearly tearing off the roof in excitement. Jackson showed up in an outfit of black denim and black leather and chrome buckles, which made Jinyoung just weak in the knees. 

The _best_ part is that he’s wasted and not thinking about Jaebum. _Mostly._ There had been one moment when he checked the mezzanine when they entered for any familiar faces, but it was relatively empty and thus no longer of interest. He focused more on getting as drunk as possible as quickly as he could and, before long, Jinyoung’s only thoughts become the music, the booze, and the feeling of Jackson’s hands on his body. 

The _bad_ thing, of course, is that he’s  _ wasted.  _ Their early set time is not going to agree with all the vodka in his system, but at the moment he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything, really; not the crowd and certainly not the flashes of phone cameras and contraband high definition cameras snuck in by “the press”. Even the actual photographer hired by the club snaps a few photos of him and Jackson: despite their regular attendance to Neon Milk, it was a bit of a rare sight to have Jackson, and even more rare was it to have two of Korea’s sweethearts openly (and drunkenly) making out like horny teenagers in the middle of a packed dance floor. 

But Jinyoung doesn’t care and pays them no mind. It is everything to have Jackson’s mouth on his, tongue sliding against his, breathing whiskey into his lungs. It’s intoxicating. Every thought, every feeling, every iota of Jaebum’s existence in Jinyoung’s mind melts underneath Jackson’s hands inside his shirt. Except for one fleeting thought, when Jackson pulls away to say in his ear  _ I think we should head home. Where’s Yugyeom? _

And the thought is this, giddy and out of his mind drunk:  _ this is what it’s like to not exist to someone, Jaebum-ssi.  _

And when the three of them stumble from the club laughing and red in the face and slightly sticky with sweat and god knows what else, the thought disappears. They get Yugyeom into a cab and sent home before Jackson calls a car for them to go to set and fall asleep in their trailers ( _ separately, Jinyoung,  _ Jackson mumbled with a laugh,  _ otherwise I’m going to strip you down and then we’ll really never make it ‘til morning).  _ Leaned against each other to laugh and kiss and laugh some more, the two of them orbit one another, clueless to the storm of their courtship that brews and breaks online with every posted photo.

But Jinyoung doesn’t care. Jackson kisses him goodnight, sloppily on the corner of his lips, before staggering to his trailer. Jinyoung goes inside and falls on his hard bed in his clothes and the phone in his pocket alive with notification after notification from friends and followers alike about their public display, remains silent. 

His last thought before he drifts off into a deep, alcohol infused sleep is short and yet full of a sentiment he can’t express. 

_ Good riddance, Im Jaebum. _


	4. Chapter 4

 

The banging that had started five minutes ago, loud and angry and metallic sounding on his trailer door, has yet to stop. 

Jinyoung, finally coming to and hungover as hell, squeezes his eyes closed when the throbbing in his head picks up to match the pounding on the door. His body feels stiff; his clothes are wrinkled and also a little stiff from dried booze and sweat and spilled water. With a groan Jinyoung checks the small watch on his left wrist and groans louder when he sees that it’s not even  _ anywhere  _ near time for them to be on set. 

“Okay, okay,” he grumbles, to no one in particular, because he thinks his head might split down the middle like wood beneath an axe blade if he tried to shout over the insistent rattling of his trailer door in the frame. Whoever it is must have something urgent to say, and as Jinyoung shuffles miserably to the door with his eyes half open, he thinks it  _ better  _ be urgent or else he’s going to jail for workplace violence. 

Nearly missing the top step, he falls into it and then yanks the door open to squint into the harsh, too-bright sunlight.  _ “Jesus,  _ what?  _ What?  _ I’m not even late for anything—“

The silhouette in front of him comes alive: Jaebum, in all his casually dressed glory, steps into the shadow of the small awning above the door and nearly knocks Jinyoung over with the force of the look on his face. Despite being hungover, Jinyoung still manages to be surprised and slightly concerned at the fact that Jaebum looks  _ angry.  _

Like,  _ angry  _ angry. Like, jaw clenched, cheeks dusted red, nostrils flared kind of angry.

What the  _ hell? _

“Directornim?” he says uncertainly, because Jaebum hasn’t said anything yet, choosing instead to give him a scalding up and down that makes Jinyoung feel quite self conscious. He had managed to forget about Jaebum all night, but leave it to their glacial director to make him abandon that with little more than a look. He’s suddenly aware that, yes, his clothes are very rumpled and he very much looks hungover. “Um—“

“Mind explaining to me about this?”

“I’m not late to set,” he says, moreso wondering out loud, “unless someone changed the time?” Jinyoung pats his front pocket looking for his phone but realizes it must have slipped out and is tangled in the bed sheets somewhere and switched to silent mode. 

“No,” Jaebum says, through the perfect rows of his white teeth. Jinyoung’s head throbs when his voice raises just a fraction and the sharp  _ bang  _ of Jaebum slapping a hand on the side of his trailer near his face rings in his ear. “I want you to explain to me what the  _ fuck  _ this is.”

He has his phone out, and without giving Jinyoung a chance to be confused, he turns the screen around to face Jinyoung. 

Pulled up is an instagram account—Jinyoung has to squint into the brightness of Jaebum’s screen to read the username—which seems to be some fan account for himself and Jackson. Plastered all over the profile in various posts with captions in differing stages of hilarity are photos of the two of them from last night. Previously he hadn't cared, mostly because the vodka replacing his blood gave him little room for judgement calls and even less room for the thoughts, feelings, and existence of Im Jaebum. Faced with it now, though, in these paparazzi shots of the two of them drenched in sweat and flushed skin with their tongues in each other’s mouths in the middle of a dance floor, Jinyoung does feel the tiniest burn of shame.  _ Especially  _ with how angrily Jaebum is gripping his phone. 

Seeing Jinyoung wince, his dark eyes flash. He shakes the phone a little. “What the fuck is this?”

He’s honestly a little taken aback at  _ why  _ Jaebum is so angry. Granted he’s also very hungover, but—it also feels sort of out of left field. Jinyoung has seen his face change, sure. Had it not changed for even the smallest of moments that day when he pulled Jinyoung in for what was masquerading as running lines with him? Had Jinyoung not heard his genuine laugh from around the corner before he entered a room? The man in front of him seems capable of emotion but, thus far, it seems the only ones directed at him are disappointment and righteous anger. 

So, yes. The obvious anger rolling of Jaebum’s face and in his body language where they stand face to face in the doorway of Jinyoung’s trailer makes him feel dizzy with the strangeness. 

“Um—“ he’s not sure what to say. Does the picture not give him all the information he needs? For what reason could he have to wake Jinyoung up this early to ask  _ what the fuck is this?  _ like the two of them had done something to personally offend him. “We went out last night—“

“Clearly.”

“And,” Jinyoung says, louder, interrupting the end of Jaebum’s sarcastic response with an annoyance of his own. “We made out.”

“I didn’t sign you on to this film so that you could go out and do whatever the hell you want,” Jaebum says, again though his teeth, like it’s taking everything in him not to shout. “I didn’t hire you for the exposure, Mr. Park—“

For whatever reason, the devolved formality into using just his last name makes Jinyoung angrier than anything else. As if Jaebum is intentionally disregarding the potential for them to build a professional relationship, a closeness for the future like the one he shares with Jackson. It feels so much more impersonal and cold than even the staring right through him does. 

Jinyoung, angry now, snaps and interrupts him again:

“I didn’t sign on to this movie to be policed by you. I signed onto this movie because I wanted to work with you. I understand that I have limits, we all do. But I am an adult man and despite being my director you have  _ no goddamn right  _ to come to me like this and demand that I adhere to every single one of your whims.”

To his credit, Jaebum looks authentically surprised. The anger still resides in the flush in his cheeks and the knot in his jaw, but the look in his eyes has changed to one of shock and maybe, if Jinyoung is lucky, a little chagrin. 

Jaebum swallows; he hasn’t broken eye contact yet but he looks like he might be about to.  _ Good,  _ Jinyoung thinks snidely.  _ Let him sweat this one. _

“I don’t see—“

“What?” he interrupts again. He’s not sure if it’s the hangover or the feeling that starts to boil way down deep inside his bones, but either way he keeps going. “You don’t see how that works? I’ll tell you: you’re not my father. You’re my director, but you’re not my father, and not my boyfriend.” 

Jaebum’s eyes flash again; Jinyoung tries to ignore it. 

“If there’s something you explicitly don’t want us doing with our free time off set and in our personal schedules, then say so. But don’t come banging on my door four hours before set time because you’re angry that I had a good time.”

Whatever Jaebum was feeling during that tirade, it’s gone now. The glint has left his eyes and despite the knot of his jaw still beneath his ear, the look on his face has passed over into the stereotypical stoniness it always has. Jinyoung wants to sigh and slam the door in his face so bad—he’s so  _ tired  _ of trying to figure out the puzzle of Jaebum’s existence. It seems like the only time Jaebum really comes to life in his presence is when they’re fighting, and Jinyoung is getting sick of it. 

“I just want to know why you can’t give me this,” Jaebum says, toneless, but Jinyoung’s heart still stops. 

_ I just want to know why you can’t give me this. _

The rhythm fumbles in his chest; a fast and unwanted image of Jaebum kissing him on a crowded dance floor with his hands wandering beneath Jinyoung’s shirt flashes like a neon WALK sign against his eyelids. The heart inside the fragile cage of his ribs quickens until it almost hurts to breathe. 

_ Stop,  _ he nearly gasps,  _ don’t think of him like that.  _

_ I just want to know why you can’t give me this.  _

His head spins. 

“I don’t—“

Jaebum makes a noise against his teeth and flashes him the photo again.  _ “This,”  _ he emphasizes, putting the phone back in his front pocket. “Why can’t you give me this energy on set?”

And, just like that, Jinyoung’s heart drops low and rises again to rest when he realizes Jaebum hadn’t been referring to the kiss at all, but the  _ energy  _ of it. 

“I—“

“No,” Jaebum interrupts, looking angry again. “This energy—I can feel it in the photo. So why can’t you do it? What’s so hard about doing this in front of the camera?” 

Fuck, Jinyoung is pissed again too. He grips the thin door frame of his trailer. “I’m  _ trying—“  _

“Try harder. I hired you because I saw the way you acted in Lee Minho’s movie. I saw the energy you brought to that role. I see your—your passion—“ he stutters a bit, here, but Jinyoung thinks it’s more so from the anger than the subject matter, “just from photos of your little party last night.” and here, Jaebum’s face changes again: it goes from the passiveness of his anger to the hurt, digging his claws in and hoping when he pulls away, the wound will tear, to mark his place as head of the pack. 

“Or do I have to make your character a prostitute to get what I want?”

For this, Jinyoung has no answer. He can only stare open mouthed at the stone face of his director, who has just insinuated that the only good performance Jinyoung can give is one that relies on being a  _ whore.  _ Shock, and shame, and something else douses his body in ice water as Jaebum gives him that signature stare through eye contact before pushing himself roughly off the doorframe and turning away. 

Once his broad back is out of sight and his stupid, trendy shoes are no longer crunching on the gravel, Jinyoung slams the door of his trailer as hard as he can before throwing himself back down on his bed and trying not to cry. 

  
  
  
  
  


But, as luck would have it, he did not go back to sleep. He couldn’t, despite having time; Jaebum had shown up hours before their set time, early as it already is, to do whatever it is he had done. Berate him, belittle him, accuse him. Whatever it was. It begs the question—what had Jaebum been doing awake so early, then, to see that and come to him about it? Regardless, there had been time for Jinyoung to lay down, go back to sleep, lose some of the buzz he had woken up with. But through the anger, sleep would not come back. So instead he paces.

This is the secret of himself, the anger. His temper like a ticking time bomb, a perpetual countdown until a diffusion or an explosion, whichever came first. For the most part it is easy to keep underneath, having learned his lesson many times about the consequences of explosive anger, and has become someone quite amicable. But he is not immune, and if Jackson’s hands are those that desperately try to cut the wires, then Jaebum is the countdown. The constant ticking of time closer and closer and closer to the detonation. 

As he paces, Jinyoung pulls out his phone, battery mostly drained but hanging on by the thinnest thread to show him the aftermath of the storm they had created. He sits heavily on the hard padded couch in his trailer and ventures into the wasteland of his social media accounts—they are practically  _ alive _ with notifications. Likes, comments, mentions, photo tags… those are the worst, the tagged photos, because it forces him to face the spectacle that he’d made of himself: doused in the blood red of the club lights, his arms tight around Jackson’s neck, pressed tightly to his body like they’ll die if they don’t. Jackson’s large hand pressed firmly to the back of his head, a feeling he remembers quite vividly; he reaches back to touch the spot where a heavy gold and diamond ring on Jackson’s finger had dug into the soft skin of his head. In the photos it looks like Jackson is trying to pull him apart. 

Even more so than the photos, though, the comments are the worst. He is not the type to read them much, and yet he finds himself scrolling through the comments on the gossip blogs, every single one sending another spike through the already bruised flesh of his tender heart. 

**[+1327, -654] look at this ㅋㅋㅋ he’s so desperate for attention, who even is he???? ㅋㅋㅋ director im jaebum should kick him out, give jackson a better co-star**

**[+964, -332] actor park jinyoung is really handsome but what the heck! has anyone else seen him act like this before ? i know he played a male prostitute in lmh’s movie, but does he always act like this ? heol…**

**[+254, -60] did he sleep with directornim to get this role ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ he seems like the type ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ**

After reading that last one, Jinyoung locks his phone and throws it onto the counter by the sink to put his face in his hands. It’s worse, somehow, hearing that and it not being true. At least if that were the case, he’d be sleeping with Jaebum, instead of going toe to toe with him every day because he can’t keep his mouth shut and Jaebum can’t keep his open long enough to have an adult conversation. 

_ At least, if I was sleeping with him… _

Jinyoung, frustrated, stands up quickly and shakes the thought off. He’s  _ not  _ sleeping with Jaebum. He doesn’t need to. He didn’t need to in order to get the role. But the implication bothers him, anyway.

Is this what people think of him? Already? Despite having one major role and being relatively unknown? That he has to sleep his way into it?

Whatever. Instead of blowing off steam by doing something productive, Jinyoung paces around his trailer a little more and lets the feeling just build up inside him. He would feel a little guilty about focusing so much on himself and Jaebum and not even thinking about how this will affect Jackson if he could think about anything else, but his thoughts race and his mind stays consumed with the audacity of Jaebum to show up and do what he had done. More than anything, it was unfair--he feels singled out in the worst way. 

By the time he angrily takes a shower and changes his clothes, the set time has finally approached and it’s time to face Jaebum again behind the cameras. Jinyoung leaves his phone to charge on his bed, absentmindedly hoping that he gets a chance to talk to Yugyeom at some point today. There had been a couple of messages from him in his notifications bar, but he swiped them away; he felt too sick at the comments he had read, he much less wanted to know if Yugyeom felt the same way the general public seemed to. Hopefully by the time the shoot is over his phone will be charged all the way and, if necessary, they can have as long of a conversation about the absolute nightmare that Jinyoung’s life is becoming for as long as they need to.

Wardrobe and makeup is a breeze, although a tense one: Jackson is already standing on set, having showed up earlier to be by himself for a little bit. Jinyoung takes it as a good sign that Jackson isn’t upset when he smiles and waves at him as Bambam yanks him into the room by the collar of his battered alumni sweatshirt, but the feeling is immediately diminished when Jaebum glares at him from his director’s chair. 

“Whatever you did,” Bambam says cautiously, poking at Jinyoung’s cheek as he combs his hair, “it made him  _ super  _ angry.”

Jinyoung scoffs and allows Bambam to fuss with the shirt he wears in the precinct scene. “Why do you automatically assume it’s my fault?” 

“Because,” he murmurs, cocking a handsome eyebrow and patting Jinyoung’s back in a silent cue to head out of the room, “you’re the only one who has ever made him act this way.” 

_ Oh,  _ Jinyoung thinks with a sneer pulled up on his lip.  _ Great.  _

Regardless of Jinyoung’s unintentional penchant for making Jaebum angry, he steps out onto the set and passes by the aforementioned well of anger and goes straight up to Jackson, who is waiting for him with a smile and a small hug. 

“Hi,” Jackson says, and he must  _ really  _ not care what anyone thinks, because he lightly brushes his knuckles across Jinyoung’s cheek. His dark eyes are wide and honest and Jinyoung’s heart hurts, just a little, for a reason he can’t describe. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs, and pulls away a bit. It’s not that he isn’t comforted by Jackson’s obvious tenderness, because he  _ is,  _ but… there’s some feeling inside of him, contorted by the anger and a tamped down hurt, that makes him feel wrong for accepting Jackson’s affection. It didn’t bother him before, so why now? He feels so…  _ frustrated. _

“I saw all the pictures from last night already.” 

Jinyoung makes a face and nods; he glances over when some of the camera crew burst out laughing and makes eye contact with Jaebum for a split second before just barely concealing his eye roll as he looks away. “Yeah. We really caused a storm, didn’t we?” 

Jackson laughs and it makes Jinyoung smile. He wants to be relieved by the fact that Jackson isn’t upset and doesn’t even seem worried about it, but the burning hole being stared into his back is making him feel otherwise. The anger says that Jaebum can stare at him with contempt all he wants, but the anxiety of losing his opportunity says that, despite it not being  _ totally  _ his fault that Jaebum is mad, he should apologize, anyway. 

He squares his shoulders; he won’t apologize. Not until it’s necessary. 

“Of course we did. A handsome guy like you kissing a handsome guy like me?” Jackson jokes, poking him in the side. Jinyoung laughs and twists away just in time for one of the female boom mic operators to  _ awww  _ loudly in their direction.

“Yah, what’s that about?” Jackson asks, mocking throwing something at her. She pretends to dodge it and smiles with her elbow covering her face and the heavy microphone balanced in both hands. 

“Nothing, but we were rolling just now to make sure the cameras are on the right setting, so we caught that moment.” She grins at the both of them--Jinyoung grins back at her and notices, even though he shouldn’t, that Jaebum isn’t laughing. “Maybe that will make the special features, huh?” 

Jackson laughs, but just then Jaebum adjusts in his chair and calls attention to himself with a low, but loud, whistle between two fingers. Once everyone’s attention is on him (except Jinyoung’s; he’s not sure if anyone notices that he’s looking in the opposite direction from where Jaebum is sitting or if they even care about something so petty) he crosses a khaki leg over the other and addresses them in that monotone way he always does:

“Alright, this is our second time trying to film this scene. I want us to focus and get through it, I don’t want any more filming delays as we’ve already had a few,” Jinyoung knows that Jaebum is looking at him for this, blaming him without using words, but Jinyoung keeps his head turned in the other direction. “So let’s get this right the first time.” 

He calls for places; Jinyoung still doesn’t look in his direction as himself and Jackson find their marks in little yellow tape on the floor and stand across from each other. The smile Jackson gives him is encouraging: he seems happy, not hungover, not worried about the potential scenario where he could lose his job because the director can’t stand him or the smallest things that he does, like merely existing. Jinyoung has been robbed of a good night’s sleep and the tension in his body that had appeared just as suddenly as Jaebum that morning makes him feel stiff with every negative emotion that his body can produce. 

Jaebum, somewhere to the right and behind him, murmurs to the crew, “good?” before his chair creaks and his voice carries:  _ “Action!” _

Jinyoung finds that, regardless of how easy the lines come to him, there’s still this part of himself that can’t let go of the anger humming in his blood. It can be good: it fuels his lines, his body language as Jackson’s character aims to give him bad news. But there’s just too much of it inside him, burning, so much confusion and unfairness and a desperation to understand just what about himself it is that Jaebum seems to hate so much. Why he can’t focus on Jackson, not just in this moment as Jackson waits for him to recite his lines, but  _ other  _ times, too, like when he’s naked in Jackson’s lap and should for all the world be in the moment but can’t stop thinking about the angry face that Jaebum makes at him. Why he can’t stop thinking about Jaebum, period, and why it’s just  _ so fucking unfair  _ that Jaebum can’t be the person Jinyoung so desperately wanted him to be.

“Cut!” 

Jinyoung, frustrated, sighs and stands up out of the little plastic chair across from the desk that Jackson is sitting at. They were doing quite well until Jinyoung started to freeze up; Jackson would say his line and then wait for Jinyoung to go next but Jinyoung’s brain is just so mixed up and buzzing with too many thoughts and his chest is so tight with so many emotions that the words just never came. 

“Sorry,” Jinyoung murmurs, not to Jaebum but to Jackson. He can feel Jaebum’s eyes on him, though, and it fuels the ever growing flame inside of him, but he tries to ignore it. “I’m so off today––”

“I know, I can tell,” Jackson says. He steps back to his mark while the cameras reset and smiles; he hadn’t meant it maliciously, just factually, and Jinyoung knows that but he still feels hurt. “Just try to breathe. We can get through this.”

There was more, but Jaebum’s harsh shout cuts through the last of what Jackson had been about to say. 

“Action!”

And so it goes again--Jinyoung desperately trying to remain in the moment, playing off of Jackson, eyes focused on his face and his hands and the shape of his mouth when he says the words that Jinyoung had agonizingly memorized. But no matter how hard he tries to focus, no matter how professional he tries to remain, there is always one moment that trips him up and the lines he had so painstakingly tried to perfect come tumbling awkwardly out of his mouth like it’s his first time on stage.

Jackson sighs; not so much out of irritation but in preparation for what’s to come when Jaebum audibly makes a noise of disgust and puts his head between his hands.

“Jinyoung-ssi––”

“I know,” he says sharply, voice thin in a warning. He’s already so disappointed in himself for letting the events of last night and the morning cripple him like this--is this what he has to expect from the rest of his career? Constantly tip toeing around the public, having to be so conscious of what he does to avoid scandals and rumors and the wrath of his directors? The constant disappointment in himself? God, his nerves are so frayed he thinks at any moment he’s going to burst apart at the seams like an overstuffed toy.

“If you know, then try harder.”

This is accompanied by a look that Jinyoung doesn’t catch because he closes his eyes and turns away while the crew resets and Jackson watches on, eyebrows stitched together in concern.

They get a little further this time––they managed to get past the scene Jinyoung has fumbled both times, and there’s the distinct sensation of the room around them relaxing like Jaebum is some wild, uncontrollable animal who has finally been calmed and they can all sigh in relief. Jinyoung wants to think this, as well, but the stress never disappears. It only gets worse and the lines just slip from his head like clear water between his fingers. He fumbles an easy line, a simple sentence, and he feels the tension in the room snap back into place like the tightening of a wire. 

“‘You can’t just––’” he stutters, tries to recover, and can’t. “‘It doesn’t--it doesn’t matter--’”

“Cut!” Jaebum shouts; he sits forward in his chair but nobody has moved, almost as if they, too, can sense some kind of impending doom. Jinyoung finally turns to see Jaebum rubbing his temples with a pen clutched tightly in his left hand, eyes closed, jaw knotted. Jinyoung wants to scream. 

“Whatever your problem is, Mr. Park, please get over it. It would like to get at least one good take for today.”

The clock on his detonator finally hits zero.

It’s too much. The frustration, the anger, the constant glacial wind whipping off Jaebum in his direction--it’s just too much. Jinyoung feels the anger rise inside of him like a sudden power surge: he bites down on his lower lip so hard it could draw blood and he explodes like so much gunpowder packed into the barrel of a canon. 

He turns; the mock desk where they’d just been sitting is relieved of its contents when Jinyoung slams both hands down on it and swipes. The room has gone eerily silent underneath the loud crashing of folders and paper organizers and the fluttering of paper as Jinyoung throws it all to the ground and spins on his heel to shout the lines in Jackson’s direction: 

“‘It doesn’t  _ matter!’”  _ he shouts, his voice cracking just slightly at the end, tears that aren’t entirely faked welling up in his eyes and he can no longer tell the difference between this being a line in the script or an organic thought. “‘It’s wrong! Jaesung hyung would  _ never  _ do that, he’d never hurt anybody!” Jinyoung’s breath stutters as he takes a deep breath and it breaks: “You bastards--you bastards did this to him! You killed him!” Jinyoung’s voice scrapes raw from his throat: 

“‘And you’ll suffer for it!’” 

His abrupt monologue ends and the room is drenched in silence.

Jackson, despite being filmed, cannot hide the shock clear on his face at Jinyoung’s outburst. It is clear to everyone in the room that, despite saying his lines, it had come from another place, one that had nothing to do with the film itself and everything to do with the turmoil between himself and their director. Jinyoung doesn’t bother to wipe the angry tears from his eyes and stands underneath the harsh lights of the studio with his chest heaving like he’d run a thousand miles. 

When his eyes meet Jaebum’s, the watery outline of him, Jaebum is looking back. There is, for once, something else on his face: it is not the anger he had arrived with that morning, or the carelessness that he arrives with on the others. It is not the blank face of a stone like when Jinyoung had met him. It is, for now, unreadable; but there is  _ something  _ there, something new, that strikes Jinyoung’s heart like the first bolt of lightning thrown by God. 

_ Please,  _ Jinyoung begs, but is not sure what exactly it is he’s asking for.  _ Please. _

Jaebum’s eyes never leave his. “Cut,” he murmurs, assuming that the cameras had been rolling for that, almost seeming to hope for it. The room has narrowed down to the two of them, simultaneously the cat and the mouse and the bucks with their antlers locked. Jinyoung recognizes the look on Jaebum’s face as partially one of wonder. 

“Let’s move on,” he says, almost softly, like bare footsteps around broken glass. 

But wonder or no wonder, Jinyoung’s patience has run out. He had expended all of it into throwing the papers off the desk and giving Jaebum the energy he seemed desperate enough to bully him for. The angry tears in his eyes have mostly disappeared, but one manages to slide down the curve of a reddened cheek as the exhaustion pulls him under like a wave at high tide.

It’s all he can do to not scream it: Jinyoung, emotionally and physically exhausted, can do nothing else but draw himself up and pull the denim jacket tighter around his waist. 

“Fuck you,” he spits, with the very last of his energy. He does not see the way that every jaw that isn’t Jaebum’s drops in naked shock as he spins once more on the heel of his sneaker and storms his way off set. This also means, though, that he does not see the way that Jaebum watches him go, something like admiration glittering in the depths of him.

Finally alone, Jinyoung locks the door of his trailer and fitfully throws the denim jacket onto the couch before falling onto his bed. He does not bother taking off the rest of his clothes, content instead to throw one arm over both of his eyes and take rhythmic deep breaths to combat the swelling of anxiety inside of him. He just told his director  _ fuck you  _ in front of all the crew, in front of Jackson--he directly disobeyed instructions from his director and topped it off with the most disrespectful  _ fuck you  _ that he could muster,  _ after  _ making a mess of their carefully curated set. Part of him thinks frantically  _ I could lose my job _ while the other just wallows in the fact that, despite how strong he makes himself out to be, Im Jaebum had made him cry. 

Texts flood in from Jackson–– _ are you okay? Jinyoungie? What the hell happened back there–– _ but Jinyoung ignores them in favor of scrolling through his social media for a bit to calm down before calling Yugyeom. Despite being a little bit younger and a little more reckless, Jinyoung knows that Yugyeom will know exactly what to say.

Just as he finally gives up and selects his name to call, a text comes in from the last person he would have expected and the last person he wanted:

**From: Im Jaebum director-nim  
** _ Jinyoung-ah, today you were perfect.  
_ _ -Jaebum-ssi _

That’s all. Five words, one of which is his name, no attached formalities and instead used with a casualness that Jaebum hasn’t earned. He reads the words again;  _ today you were perfect.  _ It gives him the strangest feeling: his stomach twists, fluttering, a weird feeling like hunger. The whirlwind of his heart threatens to kick up again and so Jinyoung leaves the text on read, instead.

  
  


**

 

Yugyeom, the little bird of wisdom that he is, tells Jinyoung that he shouldn’t worry about it; after all, if Jaebum  _ really  _ wanted him gone, he would have said so right there, right? 

So Jinyoung does just that. 

In the wake of Jinyoung’s on set outburst, the text that Jaebum had sent goes entirely unacknowledged. He had read it, but left it that way, his wordless signal to Jaebum that he’d seen what he had to say and it wasn’t an apology so he wasn’t interested. 

And, even more curiously, two weeks of filming goes by without incident.

He would not say that Jaebum has softened. In fact, pushed to say so, he would say that Jaebum is the same as always: laconic, stone-faced, uninterested in giving any constructive sort of criticism, just saying  _ Cut!  _ and expecting them all to get it like they’re connected via some kind of industry telepathy. Jaebum rarely talks to Jinyoung unless he has to, and even then, it is with the toneless voice he has always used with him. Jackson had mused one night that he wasn’t sure if it’s because he’s not going to apologize and act like everything is back to normal, or if it’s because he  _ does  _ want to apologize and just doesn’t know  _ how. _

“He doesn’t seem like the type to apologize very much,” Jinyoung says, head leaned on Jackson’s shoulder. 

Jackson laughs. “He isn’t.”

Regardless, the text that Jaebum had sent goes unspoken of but not forgotten. Alone in his trailer some nights, Jinyoung stares at it like it will give him some sort of insight to what Jaebum is thinking, although it does little else beyond make him  _ more  _ confused.  _ Jinyoung-ah,  _ he had said. After so much time spent calling him Jinyoung-ssi and, during their more aggressively personal arguments, Mr. Park. But it, like the person who had sent it, remains little more than a mystery.

While he would not say that Jaebum has softened, and has remained, for the most part, fundamentally the same, it would be deliberately obtuse to deny that something, whatever it is,  _ has  _ changed. He can feel it in the air whenever they’re around each other, even in the same room with one hundred other people. His eyes on Jaebum’s shoulders or Jaebum’s eyes staring a hole through the middle of his chest. The deliberate avoidance of Jinyoung skirting by like he’s afraid to get too close; the quick way that Jaebum bows to him coming in or out of a room as though it’s always the first time they’re meeting. He can’t explain  _ what  _ is so different about it––a new found respect on Jaebum’s part? That Jinyoung can lose his cool in the most unprofessional way he can think of ? Or is it something else? It has the magnetism of their eyes meeting over and over like the unspoken throwing down of a gauntlet. It is a sort of tension like a downed powerline, the kind that sleeps but does not rest.

The question still plagues him:  _ what do you want?  _ And the desire only grows, watered like a flower with every meeting of their eyes. 

Jinyoung tries to keep this side of himself contained; he doesn’t tell Yugyeom about it, unsure what it even means and thus unable to find the words to discuss it. Weeks of this pass; the ante upped, somehow, the tension spread like a bruise as the filming continues without any more large scale incidents. Jinyoung thinks that, just maybe, he will get out of this alive, after all. 

Based on the filming schedule that Jaebum keeps updated on a whiteboard in the back part of the studio, only a few more days of normal filming are left before they film the sex scene between Jinyoung and Jackson. A more rookie actor might be flustered or concerned by this, but the whole basis of the film that got Jinyoung famous was that he was an impoverished twenty-something who became a male escort to survive, and so the severity of what filming a scene like that entails is largely pushed the the back of his mind and dismissed.

It is only when Jinyoung is approached by Jaebum, weeks after the blow-up and the unacknowledged text, that he starts to worry, just a little.

“Jinyoung-ssi,” Jaebum says, catching his eye just as Jinyoung shoves a spoonful of rice into his mouth. The corners of Jaebum’s handsome lips twitch--Jinyoung finds himself wishing he would let that grow into a smile, at least once. “Would you…” he trails off, looking at Jackson sitting on the other side of the table and seemingly getting shy. “Would you mind coming with me to my trailer for a bit? I want to talk to you.”

Not only do the words  _ I want to talk to you  _ have the ability to strike fear into anybody, but the near shy, almost amicable way Jaebum approaches him about wanting to talk makes Jinyoung’s body flash cold with panic. He just nods, though, gracefully wiping his mouth and giving his unfinished meal to Jackson to throw away. Even if there was much left, he thinks he’d be a little too nervous to eat it, anyway. 

They don’t talk along the way; Jinyoung falls a little bit behind and watches the broad expanse of Jaebum’s shoulders as the muscle moves visibly beneath the dark denim of his jacket. There’s a large panel of some manga stitched onto the middle, but Jinyoung finds he can’t really focus on it when Jaebum suddenly stops at the door of a trailer not unlike his own and leads him inside.

What shocks him the most isn’t that the trailer is exactly like his in design, as he’s sure all of the trailers on the lot are, but that it’s so  _ empty.  _ Jinyoung has at least populated his with some things that make it feel lived in; cups, mugs, his computer, clothes strewn about and hung in the tiny closet. Jaebum’s trailer is devastatingly empty save for the abundance of loose papers cramped with typed text and messy writing in glaring red pen. 

Too surprised by the lack of anything personal in the trailer to stay quiet, Jinyoung licks his lips and asks, “do you not stay here often?” 

Jaebum had turned to get a water bottle from the fridge and hands it over to him with his eyebrows raised like he’s surprised Jinyoung asked him a genuine question. He’s even more surprised that Jaebum offers him the couch while he pulls up a plastic chair and turns it around to sit backward in it before answering.

“No. Not really. I have an apartment close by,” and he gestures vaguely in the direction of the city behind them. “So I only stay here if I’m here for a long time and am too tired to drive home or don’t feel like asking anyone for a ride.”

This surprises him, but he doesn’t show it. Nerves have started to dance in Jinyoung’s knees and fingertips: he bounces a leg and lets his fingers tap an unsteady beat against the light wash denim of his pants over his thigh. Jaebum is just watching him look around the impersonal inside of his trailer and he thinks that, after all this time, Jaebum is finally going to fire him. He can’t help but swallow nervously and notices that Jaebum notices. 

Stranger still is the moment that Jaebum reaches out to put his hand on Jinyoung’s knee. 

Jinyoung just looks at it: his palm is warm, the heat of it seeping through his pants to warm the skin. It almost feels like his body is not his and he’s experiencing it through a lens, watching a film of his life as the director who has done nothing but ice him out and fight with him since his first day gently squeezes the knee that had continued to bounce in anxiety until it forces it to stop.

“What did I say about fidgeting?” Jaebum says, quietly, a direct reference to one of their first times alone. The atmosphere almost feels amicable and Jinyoung, confused, feels his heartbeat stutter.

“That it’s not becoming of someone like me?”

And, like the miracle of the sun parting the clouds after years of rain, Jaebum smiles. At  _ him.  _ Jinyoung would let his jaw drop in shock if he didn’t think that would be incredibly rude, but even still, his heartbeat stutters in his chest and goosebumps threaten to raise on his arms when Jaebum has yet to move his hand off of his knee where he continues to squeeze it.

_ Is this real?  _ Jinyoung thinks, lost.  _ Am I dreaming?  _ The anxiety ramps up higher and Jinyoung allows himself one thought: 

_ God, he’s handsome when he smiles.  _

But it disappears when Jinyoung swallows again, harder, a little more audible in the silence between them. His dark eyebrows stitch together.

“You seem so nervous.”

_ Yeah, no shit. You’re being kind of nice and kind of friendly and I think you’re going to fire me. _

Jinyoung just keeps looking at him, hands clasped in his lap, afraid that if he opens his mouth he’s going to throw up.

Jaebum’s frown deepens. “What’s wrong?”

He struggles to find the words but says them quickly when he does: “It...it kinda feels like you’re about to fire me…”

The shock on Jaebum’s face is naked and  _ real,  _ the most real expression he’s ever seen that isn’t anger. “What? Why would you think that?”

Jaebum removes his hand and Jinyoung, already finding himself missing the warmth of it, sighs and runs a slightly shaky hand through his hair. He has no idea why Jaebum is being so... _ whatever  _ this is right now, but if it’s going to be like this, he better take advantage of Jaebum actually using his words and talk it out while he still can. Apology or no apology.

“Well, all we do is argue and you seem like you don’t like me very much.”

Jaebum’s reply is quick, but earnest. “That’s not true.” 

He laughs a little nervously and tries to make a joke: “what, that we don’t argue?” 

“That I don’t like you.”

All Jinyoung can do is stare at him: he waits for any sign of a joke, for Jaebum to break and say  _ just kidding,  _ but his dark cat’s eyes remain stoic and fixed on him like they have been for the past few weeks. It occurs to Jinyoung suddenly that they are totally alone in the quiet of Jaebum’s trailer and his heart, fidgety bird that it is, starts to flutter uselessly against his ribs.

“Oh.”

Jaebum folds his arms along the plastic back of the orange chair and fixes him with a look. “I think you are fantastic, and I think you have a lot of potential. If I wanted to fire you, I would have done that on your first day.”

“Oh,” he says again, bewildered. Jinyoung has to look away, looking at the visible curve of Jaebum’s adam’s apple, feeling the world tilt upside down.

_ If that’s the case, then why have you been so awful to me since I got here? _

“Thank you,” he says, instead, and lamely.

That sleeping powerline hums.

“Anyway,” Jaebum says, taking a breath. “I wanted to talk to you. I know you read the whole script, so I know that you know there’s a sex scene.” 

Jinyoung is also a little caught off guard by hearing so much of Jaebum’s voice at once, but he just nods. Is that what this is about? Jinyoung just shrugs.

“Yeah, I know.”

“We’re getting ready to film that.”

He laughs a little––had so much time passed that quickly? He guesses so, he’s already been on the set of this movie for almost two months. Strange to think that, soon enough, they’ll be done altogether. It gives him a weird feeling in his heart to think that he’d be done working so closely to Jaebum and he tries to ignore this.

“Wow, already?”

“I just need to know what you’re comfortable with.”

“Are you asking me as a prostitute?” Jinyoung says, but with a smile so that it’s clear it’s just a joke. 

But Jaebum––Jaebum visibly flinches, as though Jinyoung’s words had carried a physical slap. His cheeks flush pink in shame and Jinyoung feels like screaming--who is this person? Who is this man sitting in front of him, praising him, saying he has potential, being visibly affected by Jinyoung’s reaction to the words he had said? Had the last three weeks of their time together on set really changed his perception of Jinyoung this much that he could be himself, or what he is parading as himself, so freely? Jinyoung isn’t sure.

Either way, looking ashamed or not, he doesn’t really apologize. He clears his throat and doesn’t look at him. “Ah...no. Just, you’re going to be naked.”

This is not news to Jinyoung, so he’s confused as to why Jaebum brought him all the way to his trailer just to tell him he has to get naked to have sex. “Um, yes.”

Jaebum finally looks at him and, to Jinyoung’s surprise, the flush on his cheeks is still there. A staring contest starts; the powerline shakes.

“On camera,” Jaebum says, like he’s trying to emphasize it.

Jinyoung raises his eyebrows. “Yes, I assumed. That’s fine.”

Bewildered, he watches Jaebum shift almost awkwardly in his seat, finally breaking eye contact with Jinyoung while the pinkness of his cheeks darkens and starts to spread down his neck. If Jinyoung wasn’t so totally fucking confused as to why stone cold Im Jaebum suddenly seems like an awkward teenage boy in relation to Jinyoung being naked on camera, he would call him out for how unprofessional he’s being. 

“Wait,” Jaebum says suddenly, looking back at him with an expression on his face akin to alarm. “Have you––have you been naked on camera before?”

He wonders, for just a moment, if this is something he has to answer--is this another  _ did you sleep with Jackson _ moment, or is Jaebum just genuinely asking if he has? Regardless, he should know that his movie with Lee Minho didn’t involve any full scale nudity, just partially, and that’s Jinyoung’s only feature film. Jaebum  _ doesn’t  _ know, of course, that Jinyoung let his early college boyfriend record the two of them having sex and, just to test the limits, Jinyoung tells him so in not so many words.

“Not publicly.”

“Not publicly––?” Jaebum looks confused for a fraction of a second before it seems to dawn on him: he looks away from Jinyoung toward the window at the front of the trailer and swallows audibly. His cheeks are now pink down to his neck and the tips of his metal-lined ears have turned a brilliant shade of red. Jinyoung, in disbelief, only watches with no words as the immovable stone that is Im Jaebum is starting to crumble all because Jinyoung said he’s been naked on someone’s camera before.

_ Did I fall into another universe? Did he get replaced by a body-snatcher these last 3 weeks? Who is sitting in front of me right now? _

And just to make it more confusing, Jaebum actually looks  _ flustered.  _ His nails dig into his wrists as he clears his throat and avoids looking directly into Jinyoung’s eyes and says,

“Okay. Um,” and Jaebum pauses enough for Jinyoung’s heart to start racing.

Is Jaebum––is Jaebum thinking about him  _ naked?  _

The powerline wakes up.

All of the accumulated tension between them starts to blossom open like a flower as Jaebum adjusts in his seat and licks his lips. The implication of Jinyoung being not only open to being filmed naked but to having it filmed on a personal camera and not for the sake of filmmaking is heavy in the air like smoke. His heart, curious and confused and alive, thumps nervously against his ribcage as Jaebum struggles to get the words out. 

_ God, is he thinking about us making a sex tape?  _ Jinyoung inhales deeply through his nose and tries to push this thought as far away as it will go.

“Just––okay, I know it’s bad form to get––to get hard,” Jaebum says, and actually  _ stutters.  _ Jinyoung doesn’t want to admit the combination of Jaebum seeming very shy about this subject and stuttering over  _ get hard  _ makes Jinyoung’s stomach burn with a low heat, but it does, and he struggles to fight back the feeling that Jaebum gives him. “But don’t worry about it if it happens. I know you and Jackson like each other,” and this is said in a choked kind of way, but Jinyoung is so distracted by the way Jaebum pulls both of his lips between his teeth that he doesn’t notice.

“You won’t be having actual penetrative sex on camera,” Jaebum continues, and though his voice gets stronger, Jinyoung takes one look at his face to see that Jaebum is still a bit red and is having a staring contest with Jinyoung’s neck. His heartbeat is wild inside of him and his body feels hot, like he has fallen into a fever dream.

“But you’ll both be naked and it’ll appear that he’s inside of you.”

Now it’s Jinyoung’s turn to stutter.  _ When did I turn into a nervous teenager? _

“O--okay.”

“Are you okay with me being in the room while this is shot?” Jaebum clears his throat a little and shifts again. He doesn’t look up at him, eyes trained on his neck, but his voice has evened out when he says, “that’s––that’s the whole reason we’re talking about this. Okay? I just––”

But Jinyoung is barely listening. He heard Jaebum say  _ are you comfortable with me being in the room while this is shot?  _ and the rest went out of the window. Is he okay with Jaebum sitting there and watching him get pretend fucked by Jackson, who has become an afterthought in the hurricane of Jinyoung’s thoughts since the first time Jaebum had put his hands on his arms? His stomach bottoms out. 

“Yes.” 

There must be something in Jinyoung’s voice; Jaebum looks up and meets his eyes and it’s like the room is full of gasoline and the two of them are both holding a match. Who will throw it down first? Jinyoung licks his lips and takes a shaky breath that Jaebum watches. Somehow they have evolved, from the glacier that Jaebum had been to the steady, distant camaraderie of the last few weeks, to the madness of now, balancing in the middle of some dangerous wire. It doesn’t feel real, this tension, but the tightness of Jinyoung’s chest and the fervor in which he wishes that Jaebum would just throw down the first match makes his head spin. 

“We’ll film the kiss, first,” Jaebum says, voice steady, but the bead of sweat that trails down the contour of his well-defined neck gives him away. “And then this weekend will be the sex scene.” 

_ God, please stop saying the word  _ sex. 

“Do you have conversations like this with all your male actors when there are sex scenes?”

Jaebum breathes out heavily like he’s relieved Jinyoung is asking him something as mundane as this. “Yes, except Jackson, because he has worked with me before and I knew he would be comfortable with it.”

Jinyoung cocks his head a little. “You didn’t think I’d be comfortable?” 

A little bit of the tension has started to bleed out of the air, and Jinyoung feels like maybe he can breathe again. Jaebum shrugs. “I couldn’t be sure.”

“But hyungnim,” he says, taking a risk; Jaebum doesn’t react to him not using  _ directornim  _ and his heart is a little giddy at the progress. “You said you saw Lee Minho hyungnim’s movie, right? I was a male prostitute in that. I was practically naked for almost the whole movie, and I had a lot of sexual scenes with other men.”

Jaebum is standing, now, pushing the orange chair out of the way to clear a path for Jinyoung to walk through. Their eyes meet again and the tension slams back into Jinyoung with the force of it, Jaebum’s stare so heavy and half lidded that it pins Jinyoung to the couch.

All he says is, “I know,” and yet the two words convey everything that Jaebum hadn’t said but meant and Jinyoung feels the fire in his belly  _ burn. _

But the moment breaks as Jaebum turns: the both of them hear Jackson at the same time, calling for Jinyoung from somewhere outside of the trailer. Jinyoung watches the line of Jaebum’s shoulders tighten at the sound of Jackson’s casual  _ Jinyoung-ah!  _ From outside and wonders, so desperately, what it means. 

As Jinyoung is passing him and stepping down onto the small staircase to go find Jackson, he once again feels Jaebum reach out and touch him. It’s the smallest of gestures; a simple, barely there touch that still burns in the shape of Jaebum’s fingertips when he turns to look up at him.

“Don’t be nervous,” Jaebum murmurs, seeming to reference the earlier part of their conversation where Jinyoung admitted to feeling like Jaebum hates him, but the cogs of Jinyoung’s mind have jammed on the insane amount of weirdness he has just experienced alone in Jaebum’s trailer.

So he tries to joke, “don’t worry, I’m a natural.”

And yet, Jaebum once again goes red; he ushers Jinyoung quickly from the doorway of his trailer and shuts it on him, leaving him alone on the top step in a daze.

 

**

 

Jinyoung-ah,  _ Jaebum’s voice is harsh, heavy, dripping with desire.  _ Feel so good––

Hyung,  _ a dream version of himself whimpers back, watching his hands as they grab Jaebum’s wrists and guides his palms up his bare thighs. His own voice is choked with want, breath beating out of him, Jaebum laying underneath him in just his jeans, bare chest marked with bruises obviously made by Jinyoung’s mouth.  _ God, hyung––

Do you want it?  _ Jaebum asks, cat eyes half closed, the pupil swallowing up the brown of his eyes like a black hole. Even through the haze of a dream Jinyoung can feel the masculine strength in Jaebum’s hips; he can feel the way his flat stomach flexes with an aborted breath as Jinyoung teases the waistband of his jeans and the bulk of his hardening cock where Jinyoung is settled across his lap.  _ Tell me you want it, Jinyoung-ah, tell me you need it––

_ And like an obedient pet, the dream obliges.  _ I want it, hyung, I need it––

The moan echoes. Jinyoung wakes up with a start as though he’d been pushed, sleeping, from a very high cliff: his heart rate has skyrocketed to an uncomfortable sprint that barely calms to a fast walk when he blinks himself awake. 

_ God, tell me I’m in my own trailer,  _ he thinks wildly. He looks around and squints into the watery sunlight to find that, yes, he’s alone in his own trailer, with no sign of a half naked Jaebum to be found. He drops to his back with a sigh and closes his eyes, but his heart, that traitor, does not feel relieved.

The wet dream is just an unfortunate side effect from all the weird tension from the previous day in Jaebum’s trailer, or so he tries to rationalize it that way to himself. He’s so thrown off by the voracity in which his dream self let Jaebum throw him over and he allowed himself to fold beneath his whims that the next two hours of his morning are seen through little more than a haze of confusion. What does it mean? What does it mean that, even through getting dressed, checking his phone, walking to set, going through wardrobe and makeup, that he doesn’t think about Jackson even once? And what does it mean that he… kind of  _ liked  _ it?

He had thought that after Jackson came to get him from Jaebum’s trailer and grilled him about their conversation all the way to his fancy car to go to meet Taecyeon ( _ for work purposes, hyung,  _ he tried to emphasize, but Taecyeon was more giddy about getting to meet Wang Jackson than he was getting to see Jinyoung for the first time in a couple weeks), that he would forget about it. Jaebum had a moment of clarity--he wanted to talk about Jinyoung being comfortable filming a sex scene. So what? He didn’t apologize for the ridiculous way he’d been acting since Jinyoung auditioned, but, in retrospect, Jinyoung doesn’t think that he ever really expected him to. He, regardless of the way he acts the rest of the time they’re on set, at least has the human decency to check in with him and gauge his comfort levels. 

But… 

Jinyoung just can’t shake it. Jaebum had acted so…  _ shy,  _ so  _ flustered,  _ as though they’re both some fumbling virgins. It doesn’t make any sense--why would Jaebum act like that if he wasn’t interested in him? Or even just attracted to him, even a little bit? He can’t do a 180 and be that shy out of nowhere, can he? Jinyoung is so hung up on this and his subsequent filthy, delicious dream that he feels like he’s sleepwalking.

“Earth to Park Jinyoung.”

Jinyoung blinks, surprised to see that he’s standing on set and that Jackson is right in front of him, dressed casually in his character’s wardrobe. Now that Jinyoung is listening, he can hear the humming hustle and bustle of everyone on the crew taking their places--worst of all, he can feel Jaebum’s eyes on his back and he desperately does everything he can to avoid them.

“Oh, hi,” he says, going to rub his face and then remembers he has makeup on it, and puts his hands back down. “I’m sorry––”

“Feeling out of it?” Jackson asks, and smiles; Jinyoung wants to be suspicious of how…  _ genuine _ it looks, but, that’s just Jackson. He doesn’t seem to be shielding Jinyoung from any tampered down hurt, or obvious offense at Jinyoung’s lack of interacting with him despite the two of them having a casual affair. It’s just Jackson being Jackson and he’d be comforted by it if he still wasn’t so twisted up about Jaebum.

“A little,” he lies, hoping it’s more convincing than it sounds. Jackson pats him on the arm at the same time he looks past him and waves at someone who just entered the room to plenty of shouts and cheers, the loudest of which was Jaebum’s. 

And like a puppet on a string, the sound of Jaebum’s deep voice for the first time since Jinyoung had heard it in his wet dream turns his head on a swivel. He watches as Jaebum gets up out of his director’s chair where he’d been sitting with his printed script and goes to greet a handsome younger guy around Jinyoung’s age with his arms open. 

Something comes alive in Jinyoung’s stomach, but he refuses to name it jealousy.

The guy Jaebum had gotten up to greet smiles wider than Jinyoung thinks is humanly possible and hugs him back with one arm, since the other is occupied by a tiny white dog that wiggles and barks until he’s putting it down on the ground. Jinyoung expects it to run off, but instead it just plops down next to the guy’s color block sneakers and scratches at an itch underneath a sparkly pink collar. 

“Who is that?” Jinyoung asks, half turning to Jackson, but not looking away from the broad grin that has spread across Jaebum’s face and stuck there. Jinyoung’s heart squeezes at the sight of him: oh, what that smile does, transforming that intimidating cold attractiveness and melting it down to the handsome boyishness that it never seemed like he’d be capable of, and yet embodies so perfectly. Jinyoung thinks he’s still just a little bit high from the dream he’d had and tries to shake off the utter ridiculousness of this thoughts when Jackson answers him.

“That’s Choi Youngjae,” he says, and Jinyoung’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“Really? I’ve heard of him, but I didn’t expect him to be so….” Jinyoung searches for the right word, almost losing his train of thought completely when Jaebum casually sticks a hand up the bottom of his loose fitting t-shirt to scratch at his chest while he talks inaudibly. “Young.”

Jackson snorts. “Weird, right? One of the industry’s best composers and still so young. He’s a hell of a talented guy.” Jackson pauses. “You know they were childhood friends, right?”

He’s surprised: he hadn’t known that, actually. Jinyoung doesn’t actually know much about Choi Youngjae beyond that he’s a composer and has done more soundtracks for films and shorts and commercials than Jinyoung can likely count to. He vaguely recalls  _ maybe  _ seeing him at award shows, but Jinyoung typically left after so much time had passed and, as such, missed out on getting to know him better.

The thing alive in Jinyoung’s stomach that is  _ not  _ jealousy shifts and digs its claws in deeper. 

He tries to distract himself from this by inspecting the set, getting more familiar with some of the smaller details of it just in case they come in handy later, but even the extremely intricately decorated hotel room is not enough to pull him entirely away from the way Jaebum’s laugh almost echoes in the studio. Youngjae’s laugh is just as loud, if not louder, and Jinyoung feels his jaw clench almost on reflex. But what does he have to be mad about? He wonders, to himself, too afraid of voicing this thought out loud in fear of an answer he doesn’t want. Every so often his eyes catch the way Jaebum’s are nearly closed with the force of his smile and the way his hands and arms easily skate off various parts of Youngjae’s body, signaling a closeness that Jinyoung craves and cannot have.

Jinyoung closes his eyes, desperate to find his center, but his mind is a traitorous whirlwind:

_ Do you want it? Tell me you want it, Jinyoung-ah, tell me you need it-- _

Suddenly, he feels Jackson touching his arm. “Hey, you okay? They called places already.”

Startled, Jinyoung looks up: Youngjae has disappeared, but his dog is still laying on the hard floor, splayed out near Jaebum’s feet where he’s back sitting in his director’s chair. Their eyes meet for the briefest of seconds and although Jaebum’s don’t give anything away, Jinyoung feels the spark inside his chest flare dangerously in a warning that has him turning quickly away. 

“Yeah, uh--” Jinyoung flexes his fingers nervously, curling them to fists and uncurling them again. “I’m good. Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well?” he says, the inflection like a question that he himself can’t answer.

But Jackson just smiles at him. “Just relax, okay? We’ve had a good few weeks. A kiss should be easy,” he grins, and Jinyoung tries to return it but the only thing he can see in his mind is the way Jaebum’s bottom lip dropped out from between his teeth in his dream. “So let’s rock this.”

“Okay,” Jinyoung says, and it is lost underneath the sound of Jaebum’s voice calling  _ Action!  _

He tries. He really does. Jinyoung  _ always  _ tries--he’s always giving one hundred and ten percent of his effort, aware that this opportunity, no matter how agonizing it has been thus far, is one in a lifetime. Regardless of his feelings about Jaebum (or lack thereof? He’s not so sure anymore) he gives every scene everything he’s got. But, unfortunately, Jinyoung is a victim of his heart and his head and the weird moment between them and the dream he had permeate every molecule of his vision to the point where he almost can’t remember his lines. 

The scene itself is intense: Jackson’s character is supposed to be delivering the bad news to Jinyoung’s character that the one lead they had about what happened to Jaewon’s older brother was a dead end, and up to this point, it has been disappointment after disappointment. Jackson’s character is supposed to grab Jaewon in the midst of a tearful, crying rant and kiss him just to calm him down; it is a crashing crescendo, the culmination of all the tension and need and desire to be close to someone between these two lonely characters. Normally Jinyoung thinks that he is made for scenes like this, but in the current, the only frustration is his own. 

“‘You have to calm down, Jaewon-ah,’” Jackson says, watching Jinyoung’s face with his eyebrows furrowed; Jinyoung doesn’t think that this look is entirely fabricated as he seems to sense Jinyoung’s instability when he messes up his lines nearly four times in under an hour.

Jinyoung wipes furiously at his eyes--this isn’t entirely faked, either, as he can feel the heat of Jaebum’s eyes on the side of his face, once again sitting back with a sigh as heavy as the world when Jinyoung misses the chance for his line and pulls at his hair.

“Cut!” Jaebum calls, and the disappointment is clear in his voice. “Again, please.”

But, no matter how hard he tries to focus on Jackson, no matter how many bad, anxiety inducing memories he tries to dredge up from the well of his heart, all he can see when he closes his eyes is the imprint of Jaebum underneath him and the shy why he’d blushed up to his ears when talking about Jinyoung’s body. Heat douses his body in gasoline; Jackson steps forward to grab both of his arms so their characters can finally kiss, but something about it feels so  _ wrong  _ that Jinyoung can’t help but turn his face away at the last moment and close his eyes in defeat.

“Oh, my  _ god,”  _ Jaebum groans from the sidelines, and there’s the audible sound of papers slapping the ground where he throws them.

Jinyoung opens his eyes to see Jackson stepping back to his previous mark and watching him with a curious look of worry and what seems like suspicion. Instead of thinking about this any harder, Jinyoung notices that Youngjae’s dog has scurried away from the papers Jaebum had thrown and found shelter beneath one of the unoccupied chairs a few feet away. Too afraid to look at him directly, Jinyoung watches her lick her paws and rest her chin in the small wooden X of the chair’s legs. 

“One more time, and I swear to god, Jinyoung,” Jaebum warns, and Jinyoung feels a hot flash of whatever that feeling is--desire, annoyance, frustration. Frustration at Jaebum for everything he’s done without apology and everything he’s said without hesitation and every touch he gave without permission. Frustration at himself for not getting this right and letting the gravity of Im Jaebum’s existence yank him into orbit just to slam him to pieces on the ground where he had once been a force all on his own. 

“I’m sorry,” he says through his teeth, and steps back to his mark. Jinyoung keeps his eyes focused on Jackson’s chest instead of his face and tries not to flinch when Jaebum yells  _ Action!  _ with an anger Jinyoung recognizes. 

They go again--Jinyoung starting to cry, chest heaving, words spilling out of his mouth like water. Jackson’s character trying to calm him down, finally having enough and swooping in like some unmasked hero to dip Jaewon down into his arms and kiss him until it all stops hurting. But, again, Jackson gets too close and the only thing Jinyoung sees is Jaebum’s half-lidded eyes and he fucks up the line, again. 

Jackson steps away; Jinyoung closes his eyes. The set has settled into the silence just before a storm until Jaebum bursts:

“Fuck!” Jaebum scrubs his face with both hands and Jinyoung looks over just in time to make eye contact with him, which feels like a kick in the stomach. “This scene is so simple, Jinyoung, I don’t understand! I don’t understand why after two weeks of amazing takes all of a sudden you’re fucking up something as simple as a kiss? Something so  _ easy?”  _

The worst part is that Jinyoung doesn’t know, either. His feelings and his thoughts are a mess and Jaebum’s anger does nothing but throw gasoline on the flames; the chastisement after such a strange yet progressive moment wounds his pride and he cannot help but bite back:

“Well maybe if you weren’t such an uptight prick about every single little detail we’d be done with this goddamn movie already.” 

Silence. 

Immediately he regrets saying it--truthfully, he hadn’t meant it, not really. In the first days of their shooting, yes, it was annoying, and it’s annoying, still, but in the few weeks they had come to find some sort of stable ground it had just become a part of Jaebum’s process that Jinyoung adjusted himself to. But the criticism after the private praise hurt worse than it should and the dream has his thoughts turned upside down and he should take it back, but he is too proud, and so he stares Jaebum down with a flush on his face. 

He expects Jaebum to yell--but he doesn’t. It’s almost more frightening that he calmly sets his clipboard aside into the empty chair and folds his hands in his lap, addressing the rest of the room in a voice that could be seen as polite to people who don’t know him.

“Everyone out. Everyone get out, right now, and do not come back until tomorrow. Is that understood?”

There’s no verbal response, only a beat of hesitant silence before every single soul in the room is hastily packing up their immediate belongings and ushering themselves from the set. Jackson passes by with a comforting pat to the shoulder and whisper of  _ call me later,  _ but his eyes are locked on the little burning suns that Jaebum’s have become and he doesn’t hear it even when the door slams behind him and the two of them are shut up in uneasy silence. 

Jinyoung looks away first. The tension has returned tenfold, the room soaked once more in gasoline, and both of them burning like they’ve each become the match. Jinyoung clenches his jaw and tries not to cry, or scream, or both. In his peripheral vision, Jaebum slowly stands up and sets his things down into an empty chair before approaching him where he stands on the little yellow X made of tape facing the fake TV.

“I don’t get you,” Jaebum says, and even though Jinyoung isn’t looking, he can tell it comes from between his teeth. The anger is radiating off Jaebum in waves. “You did so well for two weeks, Jinyoung. And now this?” he gestures vaguely to the space between them to indicate whatever it was that Jinyoung was trying to do during the scene. “I know you have passion. I know you have energy. I’ve seen it.”

“You’re just not looking hard enough,” Jinyoung says, and almost flinches at the way Jaebum sighs heavily through his nose. He runs a hand through his hair in frustration and wishes it would stop shaking. “You’re nitpicking everything! God, hyungnim, you’re so fucking uptight—” Jinyoung’s breath hitches at the drovel of words that come out without his permission and it’s too late to take them back: “it drives me insane, i feel like this will never end—“

This, apparently, more so than the blatant  _ fuck you  _ that Jinyoung had spat at him a couple weeks before, is too much. He crosses the short distance between them and roughly grabs Jinyoung’s upper arms with both hands and turns him so that Jinyoung is forced to face him.

And now the ante has upped again: the powerline that slept has been punched awake, and it hums with every breath and every nerve in Jinyoung’s body vibrates with it. Every point of contact of Jaebum’s fingers where they dig into his arms and the heat from his body where it’s mere inches away from Jinyoung’s. How badly he wants to fist a hand in his shirt and yank him closer, and yet so badly he wants to push him away.

“What makes you think you can talk to me like that?” Jaebum asks, voice low and rough, and accompanied by a little shake.

Jinyoung gets his hands up and shoves hard at Jaebum’s arms, enough so that his grip on Jinyoung slips and he stumbles back a little. The look in his eyes flashes dangerously and the gasoline soaks his belly. 

“What makes you think you can fucking touch me like that?”

Jaebum ignores this and steps closer, into Jinyoung’s space. This is such another 180 from the near-sweetness of Jaebum in his trailer that Jinyoung really feels like nothing in this last few weeks has been real. “Is a kiss scene so hard, Jinyoung? For someone who played a whore for an entire movie, you’d think it would be easy.”

It stings like a slap; Jinyoung takes a step back only to have Jaebum fill the space with another step of his own. “I rarely kissed in that film, and you know that.”

“Do you need to be shown how to do one, then?” 

Jinyoung’s heart lurches.  _ “Fuck  _ you--”

Again this is too much for Jaebum: he closes the gap, fast, both hands on Jinyoung’s arms and backing him up hard into the false wall between the two sets. He lets go and cages Jinyoung in with his elbows locked, leg pushed between Jinyoung’s thighs and so close that their stomachs brush with each labored breath and Jinyoung can count each pinpoint of light in the utter black of Jaebum’s eyes. Somehow in the few steps it had taken Jaebum to back him into the wall, the atmosphere had changed just slightly.

With every breath he can feel the way his stomach grazes Jaebum’s. He can feel the strength in the leg shoved between his thighs; he can see the obvious strain in the length of Jaebum’s neck, and Jinyoung would be a filthy liar if he said he didn’t enjoy this, the utter tenacity of the emotion rolling off of Jaebum, a perfect match to the one rolling off of himself. The dark brown of Jaebum’s eyes are swallowed up by the black of his pupils and it’s so close to Jinyoung’s dream that he can feel it, way down in his groin, the fire starter. 

“What makes you think you know how to act, huh?” Jinyoung says, arms at his sides and desperately holding himself back from yanking Jaebum all the way against him. There is a delicacy to this moment, balanced on a thread, and Jinyoung is afraid to break it before it’s ready. “When all you do is sit behind a camera?” 

“I don’t have to know how to act to know how to kiss, Jinyoung-ah,” Jaebum nearly growls, and it is clear in his voice that this is no longer about the shot he couldn’t get, but something else. It’s all Jinyoung can do not to groan and fall back into the dream at the sound of Jaebum saying his name like this,  _ Jinyoung-ah _ ; begging him,  _ I want it, hyung, I need it-- _

One of his hands, of its own desire, fists in the loose material of Jaebum’s black t-shirt. Both of them hear the sharp intake of breath between Jaebum’s teeth when Jinyoung’s knuckles brush his stomach; Jaebum’s hips jerk just slightly to press him harder against the wall and there’s no mistaking the feeling of Jaebum getting half-hard in his jeans. Jinyoung’s fragile rabbit’s heart thumps against his chest so loudly he barely hears himself whisper, 

“Then show me what you want, directornim.” 

For just a moment, he thinks that he’s dreaming: Jaebum leans in further, the scent of him so strong and familiar and  _ real.  _ Jinyoung doesn’t hide his gasp when Jaebum drops to an elbow against the wall, their faces so close that Jinyoung can clearly see the flush that burns along Jaebum’s cheekbones; he can see the sweat at his temples in the dark of his hair and the wet shine of his bottom lip when it reappears from between the straight line of his teeth. Jinyoung’s other hand finds the line of Jaebum’s belt and digs his fingers in and the sound that Jaebum makes in his chest is as divine as the whisper of his breath where Jinyoung can feel it across his lips. 

He tips his head back to anticipate a kiss that never comes. Jaebum hovers just close enough that he feels the ghost of his lips when he speaks: 

“This,” Jaebum whispers, like he’s telling Jinyoung some long dead secret.  _ “This  _ is the passion that I want.” 

And, just like that, he steps away. 

The warmth feels like it is sucked from the room when he does, as though Jaebum had been the heat and in stepping away he opened the door to let in the wind that ravages through the hollow center of Jinyoung when he realizes what Jaebum had done. It was a wind up activity: Jaebum had pushed him and pushed him until he broke, stepped into the circle of what he understood that Jinyoung wanted, and dredged that desire up from the bottom of the lake of Jinyoung’s heart where he intended to drown it. His body, no longer burning up from the inside, but doused in ice water and aching like a vicious, open wound.

Part of him feels like it could collapse; he falls back against the wall as his knees give out a bit but, too proud to show just how deeply it hurts to have been deceived so easily, he pushes himself back up with an elbow. There must be some look on his face because Jaebum, who has not stopped staring at him, furrows his brows and appears to be genuinely concerned about the suddenness of Jinyoung’s change.

“Jinyoung?” he asks, and steps forward a bit, but Jinyoung turns away. “Wait, Jinyoung-ah--what’s the matter?” 

But Jinyoung is tired of answering questions that Jaebum has no right to ask. Heart hollowed out, Jinyoung turns his face away so that Jaebum can’t see the way he wipes angry tears from his eyes. He can feel the way Jaebum watches him as he makes his way off set and goes to shut himself up in his trailer, feeling more alone than he ever has. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [face up, i'll lose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9IUKElT5w)  
> craving for some feeling  
>   
> game's up, we're nowhere to be found

 

“Just because you won’t look at me doesn’t mean I’m not here, Jinyoung.”

Jinyoung, where he has been splayed out on his couch and resting his head against the arm in a position Taecyeon claims  _ looks neck-breaking,  _ just closes his eyes and sighs.

“Do I have to talk to you just because you’re in the room?”

Taecyeon answers with a snort from one of the chairs in Jinyoung’s living room somewhere behind his head. “That’s why I’m here, so… yes.”

“Whatever happened to just sitting in silence and enjoying each other’s company?” Jinyoung huffs, but he leans up into a sitting position so he can adjust and face his manager from the other end of the couch. Taecyeon watches this with an eyebrow raised, almost disappearing underneath the brim of his tattered baseball cap.

“I know you’re not going to tell me what happened--”

_ “Nothing  _ happened,” Jinyoung interjects sourly, but Taecyeon waves him off and ignores this. He rests an ankle on the opposite knee and levels him with a look, continuing:

“--but I don’t even want to talk about that, unless you want to. Okay? I’m here because we  _ have  _ to talk about this,” he says, somewhat seriously, although after knowing him for so long and being so close to him, Jinyoung can still see the hint of older-brother playfulness in the corners of his mouth like a quiet beacon of calm. Taecyeon shakes his phone in Jinyoung’s direction vaguely. “You’ve seen them, right?” 

Of course he’s seen them--the rumors that have started to spread like diseased water in the soil about him and Jaebum are just about the only thing he  _ does  _ see online these days. Jinyoung has never participated that heavily in social media--he has accounts, but rarely uses them, unless requested by his directors or the companies of his contracts. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t  _ check  _ them, though, and it is precisely this reason that he never posts anything: more fuel for the fire, and this is one inferno Jinyoung just wants to die out.

Even without saying so in the affirmative, he knows Taecyeon knows that he’s seen them. It’s everywhere--it’s all over Twitter, he’s been tagged on Instagram in screenshot after screenshot after screenshot of fan pages and online gossip blogs about the scandalous nature of his employment on the set of  _ Black Dog.  _ And, stupidly, he had read some of them: the articles posted on websites awash with baseless information detailed (sometimes explicitly, to his mild discomfort) the illicit (and sometimes romantic, to his despair) nature of his relationship to indie darling director Im Jaebum. These things had existed since he was hired but it seems, in startling coincidence, that they have ballooned to obscenery in the days following whatever weird not-quite-kiss moment they shared alone on set. For a moment he considered that maybe Jaebum himself is spreading some of these rumors just to generate press, and he even expressed this thought to Yugyeom, who just said,  _ what, so like he’s Gossip Girl?  _ Which went over Jinyoung’s head and thus closed the door on the possibility. 

The particularly bad ones in which Taecyeon is referencing via shaking his phone like a noraebang tambourine are the ones that Jinyoung very much wants to avoid: they hint at something much deeper, much more intimate and complicated than the knee-jerk Naver comments like  _ lol they’re sleeping together keke.  _ They suggest something more potent; a blossoming, passionate romance that has the two of them staying late on set together and the arguments that occur are not conflicts of opposing natures but flare-ups of passion unbridled by a gawking audience of their coworkers. The heated glances shared between them and often caught in the backgrounds of casual photos posted by the set crew spread on Twitter are speculated to be glances of pure, unadulterated sexual tension as opposed to annoyance and distaste. 

_ This  _ is why Taecyeon is taking up space in his apartment on a day off from filming, and Jinyoung wants no part of it. 

“I can almost see the smoke coming out of your ears with how hard you’re thinking about this,” Taecyeon jokes. As much as he doesn’t want to, Jinyoung’s mouth twitches in a smile.

“Look, hyung, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it--”

It is. Taecyeon makes a face like he knows this but doesn’t interrupt.

“--it’s just that I don’t have anything to  _ say.”  _

“Judging by the look on your face, it seems like you have a _lot_ to say.”

Jinyoung makes a face. “That is not true.”

“Regardless--” Taecyeon tries not to laugh at him, “we need to talk about what to do.”

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, do you want to address them?”

Even at the thought Jinyoung’s heart takes a steep dive. He doesn’t know if Jaebum has been seeing the rumors at the rate that he has, necessarily, but he doesn’t really  _ want  _ to know, either. As far as he’s concerned, for the rest of this project, it would be best if their conversations were limited to what’s necessary. 

“Not particularly.”

Taecyeon settles back with his arms folded across his chest, that eyebrow disappearing under his hat again in a look that seems to say,  _ who do you think you’re fooling?  _

“Do you not want to talk about them because you just don’t think they matter, or do you not want to talk about them because that would mean talking about whatever feelings you’re harboring for him?”

“That’s not fair,” Jinyoung whines, even though it is. Taecyeon hadn’t specified that the feelings in question were romantic, and yet Jinyoung’s brain has seemed to extrapolate that, anyway. Which is more telling than he wants it to be, and he looks away from Taecyeon with his face burning. “It’s not like that.” 

“I didn’t say it was like anything.”

“I know, just--” Jinyoung sighs. Even if Taecyeon doesn’t think so, it really is a complicated matter, the rumors. Addressing them would be admitting to seeing them and, to a degree, acknowledging some sort of relationship between the two of them beyond actor and director even if it was just to deny the existence of it. To directly deny the rumors that there is something going on between them, even though there  _ isn’t,  _ feels...disingenuous somehow. 

Even though it wouldn’t be. Because there’s  _ nothing.  _

God, this is tearing him in two.

“It’s complicated, hyung. I just think that it would be best to just not address them at all, you know?”

“So you want them to just run rampant on the internet? You know he’s probably seen them already.”

Jinyoung shrugs. “So what? He’s not going to acknowledge them, so why should I? Let people think what they want. We know what’s true and what isn’t, and I think that should be good enough. Don’t you?”

Of course, Taecyeon doesn’t look convinced. In fact, he stands up with a sigh, sliding his phone back into his pocket and patting the others like he’s looking for his keys. Jinyoung feels bad for some reason--it’s not that Taecyeon looks disappointed, but he looks  _ worried,  _ and Jinyoung likes that even less than disappointment. At least the disappointment would have a concrete cause. But the worry? Jinyoung isn’t really sure what exactly Taecyeon is worried about and, in turn, that worries  _ him. _

“You know,” Taecyeon says, just before he turns; Jinyoung looks up at him with his cheek resting against the back cushions of the couch and wishes that Taecyeon would get that worried look off his face, like Jinyoung is some love-sick little brother going through a break-up or something. “I kind of regret trying so hard to get you this role sometimes.”

Jinyoung’s heart sinks. “Why, hyung? It’s not your fault he’s not the person I thought he was. It’s not mine, either. As much as we fight and as much as I want to strangle him or walk out and quit, I don’t regret it.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” he says, and means it. He  _ doesn’t  _ regret it. He regrets getting his hopes up about Jaebum, yes, but he doesn’t regret anything else. “So thank you, hyung.”

Taecyeon just hums and nods. They look at each other for a moment in comfortable quiet, seeming to communicate across it without words; Taecyeon is trying to tell him something about the state of his heart, he knows, and Jinyoung stubbornly closes it off so that he doesn’t have to listen. Finally, Taecyeon sighs and heads for the front door to once more leave Jinyoung in the boring silence of his apartment. 

“Just be careful, okay?” he says, and readjusts his ball cap in the way that has become so habitual for him that Jinyoung barely even registers it over the strangeness of his words.  _ Be careful of what?  _

Taecyeon, without saying anything else, nods and closes the door. Jinyoung really isn’t quite sure what he meant by  _ just be careful, okay,  _ and he’s not really sure that he actually wants to know.

  
  


**

 

The rest of their break weekend from rigorous filming goes uneventfully; Yugyeom, despite also acknowledging that he has seen some of the rumors going around, was less tenacious about it than Taecyeon (for a change) and dropped the subject easily when Jinyoung requested it. He knows his best friend maybe deserves to know that something asleep in his heart has started to yawn awake, but to talk about it would make it real, tangible, a thing to be nurtured. In their current state, Jinyoung thinks it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Permanently. 

Thankfully, and perhaps paradoxically, it’s easier to forget about it when he’s back on set and letting Jackson into his trailer. They had exchanged messages a few times over the weekend; nothing in particular of interest or note but he finds that it’s easier to disregard the thought of Jaebum and their issues in Jackson’s presence. 

“What happened the other day?” Jackson asks, playfully pulling Jinyoung down into his lap when he makes himself comfortable on the small couch of Jinyoung’s trailer. Jinyoung leans into him and crosses one leg over the other while Jackson supports him with an arm across his back. “You snapped, and then he kicked us all off set, and then you didn’t return anyone’s calls or texts until Sunday.” 

“How do you know I wasn’t just avoiding you?” he teases; Jackson laughs and shakes him gently.

“Because, Mark even told me that he texted you and called you and got no response.” 

“Ah.” Jinyoung hums. He feels a little guilty--Jaebum’s assistant _had_ texted him, multiple times, over the weekend, trying to find out if he was okay. It was sweet: he seemed genuinely worried, as much as someone who uses lazy chatspeak and no emoticons can seem worried, and yet a part of Jinyoung refused to answer. He had thought, perhaps childishly, that because of his proximity to Jaebum, he was just an avenue to lay whatever concerns Jaebum had to rest. Perhaps he didn’t consider the fact that Mark really does care; after all, he’s spent the same amount of time getting to know him as he has Jaebum, and he finds that even though Mark is largely hands-off project wise, he is a wonderful person. For this, he feels ashamed.

“Don’t feel guilty about it,” Jacksons murmurs, like he’s reading Jinyoung’s mind. Jinyoung pushes his lower lip out and tinkers with the collar of Jackson’s dark polo thoughtfully. “It was obvious you were upset about something, and that Jaebum just pushed you too far.”

“It’s a little more than that,” Jinyoung says. He intends to tell Jackson the whole thing, but there’s some part of him that feels even worse about admitting that himself and Jaebum had almost kissed in the heat of the moment on set, fabricated by Jaebum or no, and, cowardly, he omits it. “I just--I was having a weird day already. I had a weird dream about him, and it just put me in a bad mood. You’ve had those dreams, right?” Jinyoung fingers one of the buttons on Jackson’s shirt and glances at him.

Jackson nods. “Yeah. The kind of ones that you just can’t shake no matter what, right?”

In turn, Jinyoung nods back. “And honestly, hyung, I’m  _ tired.  _ We’ve been working on this movie for so long, and I’m just exhausted by him and how hard he’s been pushing. Me especially. I know you say that’s just how he is, but I don’t think that’s the case.” Jinyoung, eyes focused on Jackson’s neck instead of his face, tries very hard not to remember what it had felt like to have the heat of Jaebum’s lean body pressed into his own. But the image lingers, so much so that what he says next feels like a lie even if it may not be: “Truthfully I just think he doesn’t like me. I think he had a different image of me from Lee Minho hyungnim’s movie and when he saw the energy for this movie was different, he didn’t like it. Like, I don’t think he really wants me on the film but we’re already so far in that he doesn’t have a choice.”

“If he didn’t want you on, trust me, you wouldn’t be here--”

“Everyone says that,” he interrupts, but not rudely, and Jackson quiets. “But you guys don’t see him the way I do, when we’re alone and it’s worse.” He’s not really sure if he means worse in the sense that it’s more confusing for his heart or about Jaebum’s attitude, but he doesn’t linger on it. He sighs and lays his head on Jackson’s shoulder. “I don’t know. All I wanted to do was impress him but I feel like he just hates me instead.”

Jackson, with a small sigh of his own, shifts so that Jinyoung has to sit up and look at him. His handsome face is serious, dark eyebrows stitched in the middle, and in this moment Jinyoung wishes so badly that it was enough. 

He wishes that Jackson’s touch was enough to drive out the way he feels about Jaebum, that it was enough to keep him illuminated from the inside out, that it was more than just a distraction from the insistent thumping of his heart. Jinyoung touches Jackson’s neck while he thinks of what to say and wishes, so badly, that going to bed with Jackson was enough to keep the thoughts at bay, but the feeling is so temporary, the muted color of the world before a storm. If only it was enough to fix the complicated nature of how he feels about someone who sees him so poorly; Jackson’s smile is enough to light up a thousand rooms but the passion he has seen in Jaebum’s eyes sets the world on fire. And as much as it doesn’t make sense, Jinyoung wants to burn.

Jinyoung is guilty. He is guilty of seeking out Jackson’s comfort when he needs it, when standing next to the expected flame gets too hot; of letting the conflagration consume him so much so that Jackson is an afterthought, something he deserves even less than Jinyoung deserves the brunt of Jaebum’s problems. And yet Jinyoung lets Jackson trail a hand down his back because, wanting to burn or not, sometimes it just hurts less to forget. 

“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” he says softly, running his fingertips back up the line of Jinyoung’s spine through his thin t-shirt. “But Mark said that Jaebum does like you. He likes you a lot, actually, and has talked a lot about how glad he is that you’re on this project.”

Jinyoung isn’t sure what to make of this--it could be fabricated, easy. He says as much and Jackson sighs with a playful smile.

“I knew you were going to say that. But--” and he blushes, here, like he’s embarrassed to admit it, “Mark and I have been talking a lot. When we went out for coffee over the weekend, I kind of broke and asked him what he thinks about it, or if he knows if Jaebum has said anything about you--”

His heart starts to drum in his chest; the implication that Jackson might be interested in Mark completely misses him. “You didn’t have to do that.” 

Jackson laughs. “I know, but I did, because I had to know if he knew so I could put you at ease. And I mean--you have to take it from him, you know? Mark knows him the best out of everyone on set. If he says that Jaebum likes you and talks about you, then it’s worth believing, right?”

_ I think you are fantastic, and I think you have a lot of potential. If I wanted to fire you, I would have done that on your first day. _

Hadn’t he heard that from the man itself? And yet, still, the way Jaebum shoves and yanks, it feels so unreal.

But Jinyoung is tired of hearing about it. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore; he doesn’t want to think about the implication of it, he doesn’t want to give his feelings a name or a place or a heartbeat. Jinyoung wants to be touched and taken down, away, away, away.

“Sure,” he says, offhandedly, with a smile as he pops the first button of Jackson’s polo. “Do you want to run lines? Practice for that kiss?”

If Jackson thinks the smile is fake and he’s just avoiding the topic, he doesn’t say anything. He laughs and reaches for the script near him on the small table and hands it to Jinyoung knowing that they’re just going to discard it in five minutes when neither of them can concentrate any longer.

And concentrate they don’t--Jackson had seemed to pick up on Jinyoung’s energy before they even started to read lines, realizing that his heart wasn’t really in it; whether he sees it for the distraction that it is or not, he doesn’t say, but he allows Jinyoung to throw his leg over his lap to straddle him anyway. Jinyoung reads lines off the script as Jackson’s hands trail up the exposed skin of his legs, casual shorts pulled up high on his waist and trying not to giggle or make noise when his fingertips slip beneath the hems.  It’s a fun game for Jackson, trying to see what will make Jinyoung finally break and make a noise while he reads line in his serious tone; Jinyoung holds out for a good while but once Jackson sticks his hands down the back of his shorts to grope him and starts to get hard underneath him, he can’t focus, and he allows Jackson to shove the script to the floor before yanking him down by the shirt in a kiss. 

How blissful it is to be caught up in a kiss. His traitor brain thinks of just how good it had felt to be pinned to the wall by Jaebum and the fire of his energy, but he squeezes his eyes shut and forces it back as he unbuttons the rest of Jackson’s shirt and pushes it aside. 

“Eager, huh?” Jackson laughs breathlessly into his mouth, letting it dissolve into a moan as Jinyoung squeezes his hips with his knees and grinds down against him. “Oh, god--do you want to--fuck--do you want to turn on the bluetooth speaker? It’s still kind of early--”

“Worried someone will hear you giving it to me, hyung?” Jinyoung purrs and laughs when Jackson flushes a deep red, but he gets up for a moment to turn it on, anyway. He lets Jackson pick some loud R&B off his phone before he tosses it aside and spreads his legs wider in an invitation for Jinyoung to sit back down.

The music is loud and the sound of their mixed breathing melts into Jinyoung’s ears as the rest of the world burns away; he falls into Jackson and his touch, wanting it, wishing it was enough, but the thoughts of Jaebum are kept, for now, mostly at bay. Like a loyal animal they will come back but for now, he lives in the moment and raises his arms so that Jackson can push up his shirt until it’s over his head and hitting the floor. 

Jinyoung pushes Jackson’s open shirt to his arms, wanting to lean down to mark his shoulders with his mouth, but Jackson grips his arms and holds him in place before he can. Instead, he just tilts his head back and moans as Jackson peppers kisses across his neck and down across his chest to a sensitive nipple.

“Hyung!” he yelps, when Jackson nips at it; pleasure rockets down his thighs and he whimpers when Jackson runs his tongue over it a moment later.  _ “Fuck--” _

In their excitement, neither of them had heard the knocking on the door over the music, and neither of them realized that they hadn’t locked it. Common sense would dictate that no answer meant automatic denial of entry but it has been proven that on the set of Black Dog there is a distinct lack of it coming from all sides. 

Neither of them realize that Jaebum has invited himself in until they hear him yelp over the music--Jackson, who had been making work of one of Jinyoung’s nipples, jerks back in surprise and the both of them turn just in time to see Jaebum take a backward step toward the stairs; he misses, tripping, falling backward into the metal door and slamming it so hard that the counter shakes and knocks the bluetooth speaker to the floor and into silence.

“What the  _ fuck!”  _

Both of them are so surprised by the sight of Jaebum falling into the door and hitting his head against it that neither Jinyoung or Jackson move when he shouts--they just watch in matching gapes of shock, both free of their shirts, as Jaebum grips the back of his beanied head in one hand and doubles over to growl in pain before he straightens and levels them with a look that is so much more angry than he has any right to be.

“What the fuck are you two doing?”

_ This  _ is what wakes Jinyoung up. Indignantly, he crosses his arms over his bare chest as he gets up from Jackson’s lap and stands to face him. “I think you mean what the fuck are  _ you  _ doing?” 

Jackson hasn’t said anything where he’s still sitting on the couch, likely looking between the two of them as they stare each other down, the space between them rife with a tension that Jackson doesn’t understand. His arms are crossed over his chest but can see in the way that Jaebum’s dark eyes flick down that he hasn’t covered it well enough; he watches in disbelief as Jaebum sees the marks from Jackson’s mouth and the look on his face changes. He was pissed off when he came in, but now he’s  _ angry.  _

And it’s so unfair. It’s so unfair, and Jinyoung knows he knows it: he knows he knows by the way he shifts on his feet and goes red across his cheeks, but Jaebum’s pride is a beast, or maybe it is pain, but it is one that rivals Jinyoung’s own and he refuses to let this happen to him again. He will not be humiliated, talked down to, treated like a rebellious teenager. Not when Jaebum is wrong, and has been wrong, and not when Jinyoung’s own feelings are tangled wires constricting his heart as he stands in his trailer with Jackson on his couch but forgotten about as Jaebum’s existence expands to fill the room. 

“You can’t even wait until later this week to fuck?” Jaebum asks, but it sounds... _ wrong,  _ like he had meant it to come out differently, but someone had punched him in the stomach just before he could and all he had was the smallest amount of air in his lungs.

“We’re not going to do this,” Jinyoung spits. “Go outside.”

Jaebum looks taken aback by the rudeness in Jinyoung’s command.  _ “What?” _

“Don’t act like you didn’t hear me. Get out. Go outside. You want to fight about this? Then we’re going to do it outside, not in front of Jackson, who has nothing to do with whatever your problem is--”

_ “My  _ problem?” Jaebum sputters, and the redness in his cheeks has started to spread, like he knows he’s been caught out. “You--”

“What did I just say?” Jinyoung barks. He points at the door that Jaebum is still standing in front of, heart thumping wildly, wishing that Jaebum had never showed up like this. “Out. Get  _ out.” _

In utter disbelief, Jaebum turns on his heel in the small space at the foot of the stairs and slams his way out of Jinyoung’s trailer. 

In the silence, Jackson finally breathes. “Um--?

“I don’t know,” Jinyoung says, mostly honestly; he’s sure some of Jaebum’s intensity is leftover from whatever weird moment they had on set days before, but there’s another layer of madness to it that even Jinyoung can’t decipher. “I just--I don’t know. Stay here, I’m going to go talk to him for a second and then I’ll come back and we can just hang out, or we can go somewhere--” Jinyoung is so preoccupied with how stupid Jaebum being mad is when  _ he’s  _ the one who walked in without asking that he doesn’t even bother to put on a shirt; he slides into Jackson’s sandals and then steps down outside.

Jaebum is facing away; the sun has started to set, now, and the air that blows across Jinyoung’s exposed skin raises goosebumps on it immediately. He closes the door behind him quietly and the sound of it makes Jaebum turn around.

He opens his mouth, already halfway through a chastisement of  _ I don’t know who you think you are--  _ before Jinyoung puts up a hand and stops him.

“Stop. Hyungnim,  _ stop,”  _ he pleads, and there must be something in Jinyoung’s voice because, miraculously, he shuts up. They look at each other in the half dark, lit weakly by the amber porch light above their heads.

“You can’t do this,” Jinyoung finally says, having to look away from the dark depths of Jaebum’s eyes when he does. “I don’t know what you’re mad about, and I don’t care. But you don’t get to just walk into my trailer and yell at me when it’s  _ your  _ fault that you saw that.”

Jaebum is quiet. He’s quiet for so long, in fact, that Jinyoung lifts his eyes from where he’d been looking at the gravel and into his eyes; the look he finds there is hollow, the echo of longing like the voice from the bottom of a well. Jinyoung swallows roughly and feels his the strings of his heart start to snap.

He doesn’t apologize, which isn’t shocking, but he doesn’t sound angry when he speaks, either. “I just don’t--I don’t understand why you can’t wait. Why you can’t give me that energy on camera.” 

The way he says it tells Jinyoung that’s not really what he’s talking about, but Jinyoung is too tired to try to untangle the mess of him. He shifts on his feet against the freezing breeze and sighs. 

“Because this is different. You’re not this naive, I know you know that.” Jinyoung nods his head backward toward the door. “That’s not acting. I’m not acting for him.”

The energy between them hums. Jinyoung wishes that it wouldn’t, that this power line wouldn’t thrum so violently when they’re alone together, when the lack of other eyes strips them of their defenses. Jaebum swallows.

“So you’re acting for me?”

And in any other circumstance--in any other fight, at any other time, in any other place, Jinyoung would know that this question was legitimate. That it meant what he said, that Jinyoung acts for him, on set. But knowing what they do, having done what they did, that almost kiss--Jinyoung knows that  _ are you acting for me?  _ means  _ do you not really feel the way I think you do? _

So Jinyoung lies through his teeth.

“Yes.”

The moment between them afterward stretches on infinitely. Jinyoung’s skin prickles under the weight of Jaebum’s gaze; the look on his face has changed, the sun behind him gone down now, and the rising blanket of stars over their heads is blotted out in the rayless depths of his eyes by the burning of the lamp, a sun to eclipse the rest of the universe. Jinyoung watches with a heavy feeling in his heart as Jaebum swallows again, jaw clenched, pinned like he can’t look away.

Something transpires in this moment, something that Jinyoung can’t quite grasp. It seems to be a breaking of sorts--of his heart, maybe, although his chest already hurt long before Jaebum had thrust his rough hands inside it. But Jaebum, statue of ice that he is, seems to be the one breaking: there is a heaviness that lingers at his shoulders, holding him in place as he stares through Jinyoung’s middle in that way he has since they first met. Jinyoung shivers--both from the cold and from the weight of Jaebum’s stare, and this action seems to break him somehow; a chunk of ice from the glacial wall of his heart has broken off and sank. Jinyoung can feel it, as small as it is. Wind through a keyhole.

Jaebum opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but nothing ever comes. He closes it with a clicking of his teeth a moment later, hands fisted at his sides, and turns away to disappear into the dark without ever saying another word. 

Jinyoung watches him go--he sees him in the blips of porch light from other trailers, one moment there and the next, gone. Jinyoung sees him yank off his beanie in the millisecond he passes beneath the light to grip his hair and then the dark consumes him, leaving Jinyoung alone again. 

Shivering, from the cold and something else, maybe, Jinyoung yanks open the door of his trailer and barely manages to close it on the back swing when Jackson looks at him with an almost comical look of _???_ on his handsome face where he’s standing by the bathroom door and buttoning his shirt back up. 

Jinyoung’s insides feel like they’ve just been thrown into a blender. The look on Jaebum’s face at the last moment is burned against his eyelids, a stain against the front of his subconscious even when he closes his eyes. The breath he takes is deep, shuddering, the kind just before tears; Jackson gently says his name and Jinyoung feels his heart steel when he opens them again. 

“I’m going to get dressed. Go get your shoes, hyung, because we’re going out tonight.”

  
  


**

 

From previous experience, going to the club to get wasted when he’s feeling so violently volatile maybe isn’t the smartest of choices, but his heart is raging for reasons he can’t explain and he  _ needs  _ the distraction. He needs the drinks, he needs the heat, he needs the music to drown himself in. All Jinyoung wants is to close his eyes in the crowd and forget.

_ So you’re acting for me?  _

Jackson, though concerned, didn’t question Jinyoung’s sudden insistence on going to the club. It actually works out in his favor, he explains, helping Jinyoung to pull on a denim jacket over the leopard print shirt he wore to his audition, because his friend has a DJ set tonight and he wanted to go anyway. Jinyoung nods and hums like he’s listening, but really he’s thinking about how Taecyeon would kick his ass for wearing a  _ tacky shirt  _ with such tight fitting pants and beat up Nikes to a  _ club.  _

Whatever. It doesn’t matter, he’s not trying to get laid. He’s just trying to forget. Just for a little bit--he can work on sorting out this mess tomorrow.

Or never. 

Either way.

Jinyoung, maybe against his better judgement, texted Yugyeom and asked if he wanted to go, so they picked him up along the way. Seeing the shocked look on his best friend’s face when they pull up in Jackson’s car with the scissor doors does make him smile, though, and it’s real. 

When they arrive at the club and Jackson leans out the window to talk to the valet, Yugyeom sticks his head between the two front seats from the back and looks at him. Jinyoung looks back, blinking, face blank.

“Are you going to tell either of us why you look like a fish that just got gutted?”

Jinyoung sniffs derivatively. “No.” 

A grin spreads on Yugyeom’s face; Jinyoung hates how slimy it looks. “Does it have to do with what I think it does?”

He can, at least, be honest with this. Jinyoung blinks. “Yes.”

Yugyeom hums, a long, sighing  _ ahhhh  _ like the wisest sage from a children’s story. Head bobbing in a prolonged nod, he disappears into the shadowy backseat as Jinyoung snorts in amusement that isn’t faked and Jackson hands over the keys to the valet, motioning them to follow. 

Much to Jinyoung’s pleasant surprise, the club is absolutely raging by the time they’re ushered in the VIP entrance and lead to the stairs. Jinyoung grabs the railing and looks out into the crowded dance floor, nary a gap to be found in the roiling sea of bodies that move and grind to the beat of the heavy EDM booming from the speakers. The music is so loud and so heavy that Jinyoung can feel it vibrating inside his chest through the flat soles of his shoes.

“C’mon!” Yugyeom shouts, leaning in right next to his ear, and the music is still so loud that it sounds muffled. Yugyeom jerks a thumb over his shoulder to where Jackson has already disappeared up the stairs into the VIP area, the security guard watching the two of them and waiting for a decision to be made. “Jackson already went up!”

Heart thumping, Jinyoung gets up on his toes to yell back in Yugyeom’s ear: “Come dance with me down here for a bit! We’ll go up there later when we get tired!” 

Blessedly, Yugyeom is very agreeable, and he actually seems excited about being able to tear it up on the dance floor for a bit before having to conduct himself in a manner befitting of a VIP. The two of them nod to the security guard mouthing that they’ll be back and then melt into the crowd; they shove their way to the small bar against the wall and open Jinyoung’s tab four drinks strong. 

Yugyeom, having slammed his second drink and hooting as Jinyoung finishes a third, finally shoves their empty glasses away and grabs his arm to drag him onto the dance floor. By the time they find somewhere to stand the alcohol has already reduced the buzzing in Jinyoung’s head to a dullness; he smiles more easily, laughing, limbs tingling as the booze saws off the frayed endings of his nerves. It’s not easy to forget the look on Jaebum’s face just before he’d turned, but it is easier not to care, and he lets Yugyeom grab his hands to spin him around and around until he’s pealing careless laughter and staggering drunkenly on the sticky, black floor.

The night swings back and forth, a pendulum in fate’s hands. Yugyeom gets him another drink and comes back to him, content to just sway beside him to the music, their arms linked. Jinyoung tilts his face up toward the ceiling, closing his eyes against the kaleidoscope of primary colors that scatter and cartwheel dizzyingly across the glittering black of the ceiling. Colored shadows dance across his eyes, his heart beating, lungs expanding, hips swaying. Alive. Alive, alive, alive.

How he wishes Jaebum knew what it was to feel like this. That Jaebum could make him feel like this.  _ Alive. _

After an hour of this, the pendulum slows, and Jinyoung pulls on Yugyeom’s arm to lead him to the VIP area. It’s not  _ quiet  _ up there, by any means, but the high-rise of the mezzanine means it’s a least a little bit easier to hear each other. The security guard steps aside to let the two of them pass, leaning into each other and giggling just like they did when they were kids.

“Oh!” Yugyeom points to one of the railings, where Jackson is leaning against it and talking to Mark. “There’s Jackson. Should we go over there?” 

Even drunk like he is, Jinyoung can read Jackson’s body language like an open book: the way he’s leaning on his elbow on the railing, half smile on his face, leaned in toward Mark and putting his mouth against his ear to talk. It’s the language of desire and Jinyoung is not hurt, knowing that he had spoken the same thing to Jaebum even if he hadn’t meant to.

“No,” he mumbles, and covers his shy smile with the crook of his elbow. “I think he’s busy.”

“About to  _ get  _ busy, you mean,” Yugyeom jokes. Jinyoung squawks a laugh and digs his elbow into Yugyeom’s ribs. The younger laughs and leans down to him, “you’re not upset, hyung? Aren’t you guys a thing?” 

Stumbling a little, Jinyoung tugs Yugyeom a little off to the side to make room for the other VIPs who are coming and going. He sees some actors that he knows as they pass them going to the stairs and he gives them a little wave before turning back to Yugyeom.

“It was never official,” Jinyoung says, eyes scanning the crowd for anyone else he knows. “He knew that, too. I’m not upset.”

“Right.” Yugyeom nods. “Because you’re upset about Jaebum, instead, right?” 

Jinyoung makes a noise against his teeth and hits Yugyeom on the arm hard. Yugyeom, half laughing and half pouting, yelps and rubs the spot with exaggerated forcefulness as Jinyoung feels his already red cheeks burn hotter. 

“Yah! I’m not wrong, am I?” he whines, bumping Jinyoung’s shoulder with his own. “You can tell me, hyung.”

“I came here to forget!” He shouts, laughing, leaning into Yugyeom as he scans the crowd again. There’s a familiar shape of someone leaning against the far wall, between two of the painted doors that lead to private karaoke rooms: long legs in distressed denim; lean hips, broad shoulders swallowed up by a hoodie two sizes too big. Despite the black baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead, Jaebum’s eyes still find his, and the fire burns from all the way across the room.

Jinyoung turns to Yugyeom hastily. “Oh, good, he’s here and I just saw him.”

Yugyeom honks. “Just your luck!” 

He hits his arm again, heart already starting to pound even from the mere seconds of eye contact. There’s no way Jaebum would try to talk to him right now, right? If Jaebum just wants to glare angrily at him from across the club all night until they leave, then fine. But as drunk as he is, Jinyoung doesn’t think he can handle talking to him. Not after everything that’s happened between them with no resolution.

“Shut up! Maybe we should just go back downstairs--I’ll text Jackson that we’ll take a taxi later, and we can just go dance--”

The look on Yugyeom’s face changes; his smile drops and his eyes widen a little. “Um, I think it might be too late for that.”

Heart sinking, Jinyoung follows Yugyeom’s line of sight to see Jaebum very quickly making his way through the thin crowd over to them. Jinyoung spins on his heel and sees with utter dismay that a quick exit to the stairs has been blocked by the group of actors he’d seen earlier. 

_ Not right now,  _ Jinyoung pleads to whoever or whatever what might be listening. The sweat in his hair that hasn’t dried begins to drip down his temples.  _ I can’t do this right now.  _

But even before Yugyeom can offer him a sense of escape in the other direction, Jaebum stumbles around somebody to step right in front of him, blocking his exit again. Jinyoung takes a hasty step back into the railing. Jaebum, clearly also drunk by the way he sways on his feet, seems to take this as an attempt to flee; he grabs Jinyoung’s arm.

His voice is dark, angry like it had been earlier when he’d walked in on Jackson marking up his chest. “We need to talk.”

Yugyeom, brave soul and valiant best friend that he is, steps forward a bit to block Jaebum and pushes his arm away hard. 

“Yah!” he shouts; the music mostly drowns it out, but a few people close enough to hear him do glance over. Jinyoung wants to melt into the floor--this is exactly the kind of stuff that fuels rumors, and there they are, setting fire to the kindling. Even in the low light Jinyoung can see the way Jaebum’s jaw shifts in anger. “Don’t touch him!”

“Mind your own business,” Jaebum growls. The brim of his ball cap has half his face in shadow, but even still, Jinyoung can feel the heat radiating from his stare. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“He’s my best friend, so, yeah, it does,” Yugyeom spits back, but Jinyoung couldn’t bear to have Yugyeom’s photo splashed all over the internet and torn down for getting into a fight with beloved Im Jaebum, so he puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back a bit.

“Back off,” he murmurs, and then to Jaebum: “And you, too.”

Jaebum’s body is coiled tight with tension. “We need to talk,” he says, again, looking at him like he’s forgotten Yugyeom is standing there and they’re alone in the room.

“No,” Jinyoung says, trying to stay calm, but he can feel the way his knees have started shake. With anticipation, or anxiety, or anger, or maybe all three. “I don’t think we do.”

With a noise of frustration, Jaebum swipes at him again, but Jinyoung jerks out of reach. People are definitely watching, now, and as much as he thinks that he can’t stomach a conversation with Jaebum right now, or maybe ever again, he thinks it would be better to just give in. Jinyoung doesn’t know what to what extent Jaebum knows about the rumors--he doesn’t want to ask, either, and he won’t, in case he doesn’t really know, and they can avoid having the idea of them together manifest like a phantom. But he knows that people are watching them right now, and he knows the more that people watch, the more people will  _ see,  _ and then the photos of himself and Jackson from weeks ago will be little more than a memory.

“Do you really want to stir up negative press before your film comes out, directornim?” Jinyoung asks snidely; Jaebum’s bottom lip disappears between his teeth like he’s trying to hold himself together. “That doesn’t seem smart.”

“Then come with me and let's talk. Privately.”

Yugyeom is looking at him with wide eyes, nervous, and the people around them are still staring, which is attracting more attention from everyone else, which is already too much. Jinyoung just leans up to whisper in Yugyeom’s ear to find Jackson and let him know what’s going on and that Jinyoung will take a taxi home or call Taecyeon. Yugyeom shifts on his feet and looks nervous about this, and is only mildly assured when Jinyoung wraps his arms around his neck and squeezes tight, reminding him that, drunk or no, he’s an adult and he’ll be alright. 

“Call me when you get home!” Yugyeom calls after him, still looking worried even when Jinyoung turns to follow a stiff Jaebum toward one of the doors at the back of the VIP area. Jinyoung throws him a thumbs up and blows him a kiss just before Jaebum grabs his arm and yanks him inside, slamming the door behind them.

With the door closed, the silence almost feels deafening. The noises of the club outside are muffled, not quite sound proof, but close; it’s quiet enough that he can hear the labored sound of Jaebum’s breathing as he stands in front of him with his arms crossed. Above their heads, a motion sensor light flicks on to send oscillating strobes of red and green light throughout the room. The mirrors on three of the four walls bounce the light back. While it’s not quite enough, it’s bright enough to see, and Jaebum finally breaks when Jinyoung just stands there and watches the shadowed part of his face beneath his hat.

“What are you doing?” Jaebum asks, voice thin, and if Jinyoung isn’t mistaken, it sounds like he’s barely holding it together. Jinyoung watches him as he knocks his own hat off by the brim and tucks it into his back pocket before running both of his hands through his sweaty hair. They shake. Jinyoung wonders why.

“Um, I’m not sure what you mean--”

Jaebum is nearly as drunk as he is, or maybe even more so--he blows out an unsteady stream of air through his teeth. “Didn’t we have this conversation already? You can’t--you can’t be going out and partying all the time!” 

Jinyoung, caught off guard, actually barks a surprised laugh that just serves to make Jaebum look angrier. “Ha! Says you. You’re drunker than I am!”

To this, Jaebum has nothing to say. It’s interesting to him, perhaps because he’s so drunk, that Jaebum has become slightly easier to read--not easy in any sense, of course, but since he had maybe broken off a piece of himself earlier when Jinyoung chastised him so openly the way that he deserved, it’s quite clear in his face at the moment that he has started something he can’t finish by virtue of being wrong. Jinyoung, despite being drunk as well, can see the unfolding of the realization that crosses Jaebum’s features, parading behind the anger coming from somewhere Jinyoung can’t see into. 

And it’s this that ignites Jinyoung’s own anger: he had allowed himself to be so readable, so transparent, that Jaebum had seen every catalyst to Jinyoung’s exasperation. He had  _ been  _ the catalyst, and allowed himself to be it, and never once had Jinyoung seen the same thing in him. No matter the piece of the glacier that had broken off of him at the push back of Jinyoung’s anger, there was still a castle made of concrete around his heart. Jinyoung has allowed himself to bash his head against it for far too long while Jaebum just watched and his patience finally snaps like a frayed thread. 

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” he spits, full of venom. The sharp intake of breath from Jaebum’s mouth is audible even beneath the mechanical sound of the light spinning over their heads. 

_ “What?”  _

“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” Jinyoung repeats, chest swelling with a thundering heart. “You really can’t see it? You can’t see that this is how you treat people, especially me, and then you’re surprised when it gets dished back out?

“I’ve endured so much from you because I wanted to impress you so badly. I begged my manager for weeks, hyungnim,  _ weeks,  _ to try to get me an audition, because I’ve idolized you so heavily my whole career. All I wanted was to do well--and then I find out this is what you’re like?” Jinyoung, unable to stop, laughs a little hysterically while Jaebum just watches him with wide eyes. “You’re so hot and cold it makes me sick.”

_ “I’m  _ hot and cold?” Jaebum asks, utterly shocked. The drunk flush across his cheeks is visible even in the poor lighting from the rotating ceiling lamp. “Do you even know what it’s like being around you every day--?”

Jinyoung ignores this; there’s no time to unpack what that even means or what he was going to say afterward. The faucet of Jinyoung’s mouth has broken and the words spill out, long overdue.

“Whatever your fucking problem is--” and he spits this, harshly, swaying on his feet a bit when he points an accusing finger at Jaebum, standing so close that it jabs him right in the center of his chest. “Is not my fault. Whatever--whatever happened to you, or whoever happened to you, or whatever--it’s not my fault. You don’t like me, you don’t like my acting, fine. Then fucking say so.” Jinyoung takes a sharp breath; Jaebum’s eyes have widened so much he can see the whites of them, cat eyes stretched to half circles. “But stop  _ acting.  _ The back and forth--I can’t take it. You’re so cold, and you berate me on set, and then you take me into your trailer and tell me you’re surprised that I think you hate me?” he laughs bitterly at the expression on Jaebum’s face that hasn’t changed. “And then I think, oh, maybe it’s not so bad, we get along great for a couple weeks, and then it starts again. You’re back to cold. And you’re surprised? You’re  _ surprised  _ that I don’t want to talk to you? That I would act around you? You act so fucking  _ indignant--”  _

“Jinyoung--”

“--about everything, you try to tell me I can’t sleep with Jackson, then you get mad at  _ me  _ when  _ you  _ come into  _ my  _ trailer without getting permission because you don’t like what you saw?” And when Jinyoung laughs bitterly again, the sound of it has blackened; a look passes across Jaebum’s face. Jinyoung knows he should stop before he says this next thought but it spills out of his mouth before he can stop it. “Are you acting like this because you’re jealous of what you saw in my trailer?” he reaches backward for the doorknob, intending to leave, ending whatever this could have been and anything it was on the finality of this last note. “You had the opportunity to kiss me on set to ‘show me how it’s done’ and if that’s what you wanted, you should have done it. But you didn’t. So leave me the fuck alone.”

The silence just before Jinyoung turns the doorknob is deafening. There is one thousand emotions careening across Jaebum’s features, looking like a funhouse statue beneath the turning of the red and green light reflecting off the mirrors. His messy hair is stuck to his temples with sweat; Jinyoung hopes that this image, the vulnerable one, is the one he can keep of Jaebum instead of the rest. He turns the knob to leave.

Jaebum closes the small distance between them in half a step. Jinyoung’s hand is knocked away from the doorknob; when Jaebum grabs the front of his shirt and shoves him backward into the door, both hands fist in Jaebum’s sweatshirt in anticipation of a fight. But no fight comes: Jaebum pins him to the door with the weight of his body and a thigh between his legs.

Jaebum’s mouth finds his in the dark with all the violence of the tide pulled to shore.

Their lips meet hard. Jinyoung is surprised but his hands only tighten in Jaebum’s jacket, pulling him closer, eliminating the gap between their bodies. Jaebum’s teeth scrape his bottom lip with the force of the kiss; he can feel the way Jaebum’s entire body erupts in shakes when Jinyoung parts his lips, letting him in. The world sparks, flickers, catches fire.

The muffled thumping of the club on the other side of the door has melted underneath the harsh sound of Jaebum’s breath through his nose, panting, kissing Jinyoung roughly like he’s afraid he’ll disappear. The hands in his shirt move to his neck, to his jaw; Jaebum cups his face in both hands while the weight of his body holds him tightly against the door and he moans, wrecked, into Jinyoung’s open mouth. Jinyoung’s head is empty of everything except the feel of Jaebum’s lips on his, warm, insistent, soft like he’d thought they’d be, the very kiss he’d been craving in his dreams. The wet slide of Jaebum’s tongue in his mouth behind his teeth, along his own, drops the thundering of his heart into his stomach and he runs his hands up Jaebum’s chest to his neck to tangle them in the thick mess of his dark hair. When he pulls slightly, Jaebum’s lips hovering over his, the combination of his low groan and the obvious throbbing of his cock getting hard against Jinyoung’s hip makes Jinyoung’s head spin. 

“Jinyoung-ah,” Jaebum whimpers into his mouth, one hand on his neck while the other slips down the line of his waist, to his hip, to the small of his back to press him closer. The room spins even with his eyes closed. “Jinyoung-ah--” 

There’s so much emotion in just the three syllables of his name. So much that Jinyoung doesn’t understand, years of something, decades, eons. Maybe it is self-inflicted pain, letting Jaebum hold him against the door and kiss him like this, all teeth and tongues and breath. Maybe it is the sort of pain that has existed since the dawn of time, the desire to destroy, the helplessness in which we find ourselves falling to our knees, at the mercy of desire. And at the mercy of desire he is, Jaebum’s teeth on his bottom lip, breath filling his lungs, warm hands pulling him closer, closer, closer. 

And Jinyoung kisses back. Reason has left the building. He arches into Jaebum’s touch, whimpering, tongue sliding against Jaebum’s in kind as he tugs on his dark hair. He can feel the way Jaebum’s hips roll against his, seeking friction, cock hard in his jeans and brushing against the bulge of Jinyoung’s. Sweat drips down Jinyoung’s neck; the karaoke room is stifling hot, doused in booze and anger and body heat, and his whole body shudders when he feels the palm of Jaebum’s hand trailing up the column of his throat with the slickness of his skin.

“Jinyoung-ah,” he moans again, his voice broken. “You don’t know how bad I wanted this--”

In a mirror of the almost-kiss on set, Jinyoung slides his hand down and grips Jaebum by the belt, simultaneously yanking him closer and dipping his fingers beneath the waistband. Jaebum’s groan is guttural, so deep his chest vibrates against Jinyoung’s. The desire tears at both of them like an animal.

_ Jinyoung-ah,  _ his dream Jaebum had said.  _ Jinyoung-ah, Jinyoung-ah. _

Jaebum’s blunt nails dig into the bare skin of the small of his back where he’d pulled his shirt loose from his jeans. Jinyoung gasps, hips bucking, a lightning bolt of pleasure down his back. “Hyungnim--!”

Before Jaebum can reply, there’s a heavy knock on the door at Jinyoung’s back. It startles them both--Jaebum gasps, leaping back so suddenly that he hits the table and sends the song book scattering to the floor. The knocking continues, a deep voice calling out Jaebum’s name over the muffled music.

Jinyoung’s heart rises into his throat and thunders in his ears as Jaebum stares at him, wide eyed, as though seeing him for the first time. His mouth his swollen from kisses, his hair mussed and baseball cap on the floor, fallen from his pocket. The front of his oversized sweatshirt is twisted and puckered where Jinyoung had been pulling on it, the tiniest bit of skin showing above the belt. 

“Mr. Im? Are you okay?” the voice says, although neither of them move, locked in place. “The club owner is here. He wants to talk to you. Mr. Im? Are you in there?”

Jaebum’s voice shatters the silence. It wavers, dangerously. Jinyoung wishes he could see his face better in the low light. “Yeah. Yeah, I just needed to sit down for a bit. I’ll be out in a second.”

The voice confirms with a single knock, disappearing, the shadow under the door leaving with him.

“Jinyoung--”

But he’s not sure what to say. The whistling hole inside of him has widened. So instead, he says, “You should leave first.”

_“What?”_

“Leave first. I’ll stay in here for a little bit. Give people time to forget which door you came out of.”

Jaebum’s face looks pained. “I don’t--”

Jinyoung’s mouth moves for him, the rest of him coated in ice. “Just go, directornim. He’s waiting for you.”

“Jinyoung--”

“Go!” Jinyoung shouts, suddenly, feeling wounded. Jaebum visibly winces. “Please go. I’ll see you on set tomorrow. Okay? I don’t want people to get the wrong idea, so I’ll wait in here for a while, then leave.”

The confusion on Jaebum’s face is nearly tangible--he takes a shuddering breath in, the kind that accompanies tears, both hands in his hair as he steps around Jinyoung without a word and lets the door shut behind him.

Suddenly exhausted, Jinyoung collapses into the booth seating of the room and leans his forehead on the cool glass of the table. His lips tingle and throb, having been so thoroughly kissed and bitten, and he’s sure they’re as swollen as Jaebum’s were. His head is a mess of tangled thoughts, disappointed in himself, elated, hurt. Confused, confused, confused. And he had just made it worse by letting Jaebum kiss him.

  
  
  


By the time Jinyoung thinks it’s safe to leave without people whispering about it, the club has started to empty out, everyone trying to go home. Jinyoung stands half-sober on the curb, eyes squinted, cheeks stiff with dried saltwater. But he hadn’t cried.

Curiously, he wonders when it started to rain. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't show my face there, pointless and you won't care  
> feel my best when I hide my truth  
> i don't think i ever will, i'm hiding mine and counting pills  
>   
> [♡♡♡](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkxhpIhnL5c)
> 
> **⚠ updated smut tags ⚠**

 

Jinyoung has never been particularly prone to dreams; growing up it was always an event when he had them, wonderful picturesque silent films in technicolor or screaming nightmares. Those he remembers the most—the way he would scream with his eyes closed into the dark, until both of his sisters were jumping into his bed to hold him while he cried. 

He wouldn’t consider the dream he has that night a nightmare, but it isn’t a good dream, either. It is a repeat of the first: Jaebum on his back on a big, black bed. His chest is exposed, shirtless, dressed only in the jeans that sit comfortably low on the leanness of his strong hips. In his dream, Jinyoung touches him slowly, slowly, like the first time, watching as Jaebum’s flat stomach so lightly defined with muscle flexes underneath his hands. Jaebum’s breath is rough, anxious, desperate like the feeling that surges inside of him. Marks on Jaebum’s chest like bruises. 

_ Jinyoung-ah, tell me you want it.  _

His voice wavers. Breaks. It doesn’t sound excited, or breathless with desire like the first time. It sounds pained, like the effort in which he says it is pulled from him like dredging a body up from the bottom of a forgotten lake. In the dream, Jinyoung stops touching him long enough to notice that his face is wet with tears. 

His dream Jaebum cries openly, a manifested broken heart.  _ Tell me you need it.  _

He can’t and he doesn’t. He wakes up just at that moment; it lingers throughout the morning he spends laying half dressed in his trailer, disinterested in replying to or even reading any of the text messages on his phone. The image of Jaebum’s face crumpled in a pain he can’t understand is a stain against the back of his eyelids that just won’t come out no matter how many times he tries to blink it away. 

Shooting, as it turns out, is cancelled that day. He’s not surprised: Jackson was probably really drunk, Mark was really drunk,  _ he  _ was really drunk. Jaebum was also really drunk, too, but he sees the transparent image of Jaebum standing in front of him doused in weak light juxtaposed atop the one from his dreams and, before it can make him ill, tries to force it away. He wonders if the drinking is  _ really _ why he canceled it, and then tries to convince himself he doesn’t care.

After a while, Jinyoung gets up and goes about a normal morning routine. He takes a shower, water as hot as his skin can take it. He gets dressed, pulling on tight fitting jeans and a black button down shirt layered beneath a red tartan sweater. Jinyoung picks through what could only be weakly defined as breakfast and finally decides to check his messages. 

**Gyeom-ah 2:35 AM:  
** _ hyung did u get home het?  
_ _ ha, het. you’ll never get home het  _

**Gyeom-ah 2:48 AM:  
** _ but really hyung did u get home? or go to ur trailer? _

**Gyeom-ah 2:50 AM:  
** _ taecyeon hyung said u didn’t call him so u must have taken a cab. are u ok? please text me when u can  _

**Gyeom-ah 3:30 AM:  
** _ whatever happened hyung, u can tell me when ur ready   
_ _ i love u hyung  _

Jinyoung sighs. He uses one hand to send a half-hearted reply of  _ yeah I’m ok, I love you too  _ and tries not to be too annoyed that, even though he wasn’t present, Yugyeom just seems to  _ know  _ that  _ something _ happened. It could have been anything--a simple argument, a stern talking to, a five minute conversation, and Yugyeom still would have assumed that  _ something happened.  _ A non-event of sorts, and he still would have begged to know.

The truth of it is this: something  _ did  _ happen, something that Jinyoung doesn’t even completely understand. At this moment Jinyoung isn’t even sure if he wants to. He closes his eyes and leans back against the couch. What had Jaebum really wanted to say? Jinyoung was so drunk that he never really let him get a word in; he cringes a little as the fuzzy-edged memories trickle back in, in and out of order. And probably Jaebum deserved it, with the way he’s been treating Jinyoung since the day Jinyoung stepped on that tiny stage sweating under the white hot light to audition, Jaebum deserved the verbal whipping that Jinyoung had given him. It had been clear since day one that no one ever stood up for themselves to him and Jinyoung would not be another to just lie down and take it.

But in some sense, it felt an unfair fight. Jaebum clearly had something to say but Jinyoung’s terrified rabbit’s heart thrummed like a living thing against his eardrums and drowned it out; what had followed makes Jinyoung’s head spin even with his eyes closed and his head sinking between the dip of the couch cushions.

_ Do you even know what it’s like being around you every day--?  _

_ Jinyoung-ah, you don’t know how bad I wanted this--  _

The frozen look of  _ whatever it was  _ on Jaebum’s face as Jinyoung shouted at him to leave.

The familiar way Jaebum called his name, just like his dream.  _ Jinyoung-ah, Jinyoung-ah. _

_ You don’t know how bad I wanted this. _

Jinyoung grits his teeth and doubles over, arms wrapped over his neck and his head between his knees. Pain, white hot and searing, tears through him like the icy wind that was always blowing off of Jaebum’s presence. How could something like this, a violently passionate kiss, something he  _ wanted _ , hurt so badly? Hurt like dying? How could it hurt like he had ruined something that never had the chance to begin?

_ There was never anything between us,  _ he tells himself, fingers threaded in his hair.  _ There was never anything, there was never going to be anything. Last night was a drunk fluke. It never would have happened if I hadn’t goaded him into it… _

He had hoped that finally addressing the fact that there was no feeling between them beyond what’s expected for a director and his actor would help, but it only makes thinking about the kiss hurt more. Jinyoung can still so clearly hear every ounce of feeling in Jaebum’s voice as he panted  _ Jinyoung-ah, Jinyoung-ah  _ against his open mouth and wishes, more than anything, that he could just decipher it. He wishes he could make sense of the way Jaebum had grabbed at him, pulled him closer and closer and closer until there was no space left between their bodies. If there was some way to just  _ know  _ what it is that hunts them both... Maybe then they could come to some resolution, something to end this rollercoaster of push and pull. 

Just then, this phone vibrates with an incoming message on the floor between his feet where he had let it drop. He opens his eyes, blinking away the bleariness to read the notification on the front:

**Im Jaebum-ssi  
** _ Jinyoung-ah.  _

Disbelief and dread unfurl in his chest. Of course they hadn’t spoken since the kiss; Jinyoung had sat alone in the karaoke room for over an hour before getting a cab back to his trailer. There hadn’t been anyone out, either--Jackson’s trailer lights were dark, either not home or asleep, and the grounds were deserted. He wonders how he’s going to reply when another one comes a moment later:

_ Will you come to my trailer? I want to talk.  _

The ache inside of him just worsens. Jinyoung reaches down with one hand to peck at the keyboard with one finger where it lays.

_ Directornim, I don’t think that we have much to talk about  _

**Im Jaebum-ssi  
** _ Then will you come because I want to see you?  _

Jinyoung closes his eyes. 

Maybe the rollercoaster is just getting started.

 

**

 

When Jinyoung steps out of his trailer a few minutes later after staring at his shoes, the grounds are blissfully empty. It’s not so much that he would be ashamed being seen walking to Jaebum’s trailer by himself--after all, it wouldn’t be the first time, and the first time was much worse than this. At least that time he was just worried he was going to get fired. But the kiss has turned the world upside down and, because of this, the possibilities of whatever Jaebum wants to say are endless. All of which play through Jinyoung’s head in an anxious, nauseating loop.

The loose gravel crunches loudly beneath his beat up nikes. He knows that Jaebum heard him arrive, and yet Jinyoung still just stands in front of the metal door of his trailer without knocking for minutes on end while he digs for a courage he never finds. 

Finally, tired of standing in the cold, Jinyoung lifts his hand to knock gently on the door. The metal is frigid against the skin of his knuckles, and he quickly presses them against his mouth to blow on them while he waits for Jaebum to open the door.

“One second,” he says from behind it, deep voice muffled almost to nonsense. The sound of it makes Jinyoung’s teeth start to ache from how hard he’s grinding them together, and for a singular moment he wonders how far away he could get before Jaebum opens the door.

There’s a slight scraping sound like chair legs on a linoleum floor before the door creaks open. When it does, Jaebum holds onto it, standing in the gap he had made and watching Jinyoung with an expression on his face that Jinyoung can’t read. He remembers the way that emotion had flooded his handsome face not even 24 hours ago and wonders if maybe he had just imagined it.

Jinyoung, knuckles still pressed to his mouth, can only blink.

Jaebum blinks back at him, lips pressed together like he’s still trying to think of something to say. His inky black hair is tousled, stylish but messy, and gleaming in the low light from a sun hidden behind thick, dark clouds. Jinyoung wishes the oversized shirt he’s wearing wasn’t so loose in the collar--he can see perfectly the tender outline of a collarbone to the unmarked skin of one broad shoulder where it hangs almost completely off. Barefooted and wearing slim fitting jeans with holes in the knees, he looks the definition of every magazine’s boy next door. Jinyoung’s heart stumbles on a long, long sigh. 

And the worst part isn’t that Jaebum looks like this, handsome and casual, heartbreakingly touchable. It’s that Jaebum is looking  _ back  _ at him this way: his eyes linger around the belt cinched at Jinyoung’s small waist, the sweater, his hair that hasn’t quite dried and turns the tips of his ears a frosty, burning red.

“You didn’t even put on a jacket?” 

Jinyoung is startled into an answer; he turns behind him to look at where his trailer sits in the distance, not quite close but still visible. He turns back to Jaebum and cranes his neck to look at him. “It’s not that far.” 

“Far enough you should have worn a jacket.” Again, Jaebum’s eyes are so dark, so heavy, boring into the center of him the way they always have. There’s more to it now, though. It makes him ache.

A silence descends, then, and god, it’s awkward. Painfully so. They blink at each other and look away, only for their eyes to meet again moments later while a tension slowly starts to simmer, lukewarm water on a blistering burner.

“Come inside,” Jaebum finally says, with a strange note of resignation in his voice. Jinyoung’s heart tenses up but he takes a step forward toward the stairs, pausing on the first when Jaebum has yet to move.

“Are you going to get out of the way?”

They’re on a little more equal ground now. Jaebum only has to look down at him a little bit, and even from this much closer Jinyoung can see the heavy shadows pressed underneath his eyes like bruises. Jaebum lets go of the door and moves back into his trailer so that Jinyoung can step by him and close the door.

He pretends that the way his arm brushes against the width of Jaebum’s chest as he passes doesn’t do anything to him. Jinyoung swallows the rapid beating of his heart in his throat and leans against the tiny counter with his arms crossed, too afraid to sit down or get comfortable lest they have another incident like the first time he’d come in here alone. Now that they’ve both proven they don’t have any self control, Jinyoung is worried about what the simplest of touches could do to the pyres of themselves.

Jinyoung just watches in an uncomfortable silence as Jaebum grabs the chair and flips it, resting his arms along the back of it when he sits down and looks at him.

“Jinyoung--”

He can’t take another second of this. His mouth moves before his brain and he blurts out, “whatever you’re going to say, please just spit it out.”

Jaebum first looks startled: his eyes widen, almost comically so, but then Jinyoung is just reminded of the way he had looked at him when he shouted at him to leave and his stomach plummets. The look on Jaebum’s face shifts to something like anger, and then, in a way that makes his heart sick, that familiar blankness.

Jinyoung doesn’t want to admit that he had quite gotten used to seeing the volatile emotions spilled out across his handsome features, but he had, and now that they’re gone again Jinyoung’s heart starts to ache.

“Um, okay…” Jaebum starts, but he takes a deep breath and holds it for a few moments before running both hands through his hair and letting it out. In the silence Jinyoung remembers what it had felt like to grip the slightly damp strands between his fingers and closes his eyes against the unwelcome memory. “First, I just...I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

He opens his eyes. Jaebum is watching him with his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. “If I’m okay? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“After last night…” For once, Jaebum doesn’t sound sure of himself. It would be refreshing if Jinyoung didn’t feel like this whole situation was tearing him in half. “You stayed behind, so I just...wanted to make sure you got home alright.”

It shouldn’t irritate him, but it does anyway. How did they get here? From Jaebum all but ignoring that he exists to kissing frantically against a door like they were going to die if they didn’t to Jaebum asking him if he’s okay like he actually cares?

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

Jaebum’s cheeks flush. “Yah, you don’t need to be rude about it. I was just asking.” 

“But  _ why?”  _ Jinyoung asks, a little more desperately than he intends to. “Why? You never cared before, and now what, we kiss once and you suddenly care whether or not I got home okay? Why does it even matter to you?”

“Because you’re a person and you work for me? Am I not allowed to care about your well-being?” Jaebum shoots back, getting angry now.

And, really, Jinyoung should have just taken it for what it was, a simple question, a reassurance that the rest of this movie was going to go well and there wouldn’t be any lingering hard feelings over a drunk mistake. But it just doesn’t make any sense, and it  _ hurts-- _ they go from Jaebum being made of ice to suddenly texting him things like  _ Will you come because I want to see you?  _ but doesn’t have the courage to say  _ because I care about you  _ and makes it about their working relationship, instead. Jinyoung is just so confused that he can’t take it.

“You didn’t before, so, no, you can’t.”

Jaebum bites both lips, hard, before answering. “You don’t get to tell me how to feel.”

Jinyoung throws up his hands. The frustration and the awful weirdness between them comes to a head and, without thinking:

_ “Then make up your fucking mind.  _ You want me or you don’t. You want to kiss me or you don’t. You hate me, or you like me.” Jinyoung pauses to take a breath. “So which is it?” 

The silence lasts an uncomfortably long time. They watch each other, neither flinching, waiting for the other to break first, in passion or in anger he isn’t sure. He measures the passing of time with each heartbeat, slower than the next as the seconds move and the tension between them transforms into something else, something akin to painful. In his heart of hearts Jinyoung knows that the answer he will get will not be the answer that he wants, to be wanted. Desired. To be held over and punched through with tenderness. Perhaps a piece of Jaebum’s defenses had broken off in the moment of Jinyoung’s chastisement but he had failed to realize that the fortress of Jaebum’s heart is miles, miles deep. And that, perhaps, he had picked up what had fallen away and used it to build his own. 

There’s something in Jaebum’s face, too, similar to that wide-eyed look of kaleidoscope horror-anger-pain-desire. Almost as if he is thinking the same thing; wanting, too, to be desired, held over, possessed by something besides creation. Looking as if there is only the thinnest of ropes holding him up over the blackest abyss with a monster at the bottom that has a face, maybe Jinyoung’s, or someone that he doesn’t know. Either way, Jaebum is the acrobat, a professional at keeping that rope from breaking.

So he breaks everyone else, instead.

With a dismissive sound, Jaebum finally looks away and stands up. “Let’s just forget about it, then.”

“What?” Jinyoung asks, stupidly, although he’d heard.  _ Let’s just forget about it. _

“Let’s just pretend like it didn’t happen, yeah?” Jaebum repeats, glancing over at him, that blank look on is face that’s so fucking infuriating after everything that Jinyoung feels like slapping him. “We left separately, and I haven’t seen anything online speculating about us, so you must have stayed behind long enough for people to not think about it. There’s only a couple weeks of shooting left, anyway. Pretending nothing happened should just be easier.”

He had expected Jaebum to deny him, but not like this. Not quite like this.

A handsome eyebrow raises in disdainful question. “Right?” 

_ No,  _ Jinyoung wants to shout.  _ No, it’s not right. You’re wrong, how am I supposed to forget the way you said my name when you were kissing me? How am I supposed to forget that your tears ended up on my face?  _

But that mighty wind, once through the keyhole, now tears the whole door off its hinges. It blows through Jinyoung’s hollowed out insides and whistles in the emptiness. Had he been able to feel anything but this, perhaps he could have cried. 

Instead, Jinyoung just nods. He leans up off the counter in Jaebum’s trailer and uncrosses his arms, sliding his hands in his pockets and plastering the most painfully fake smile on his face that he can muster. Jaebum, watching this, starts to falter just the tiniest bit. 

“Sure, Director Im. We can do that,” he chirps, and it would sound pleasant if you didn’t know him. Even Jaebum flinches a little bit from the venom that drips off every word. “We’ll forget it ever happened, no problem. Make sure not to text me unless it’s about the film, though, we wouldn’t want things to get taken the wrong way.” Jinyoung cocks his head, parroting Jaebum’s “right?” 

Jaebum hesitates. “Um…”

“Glad we got that settled,” he says, heading for the door. His heart pounds painfully hard and he prays that he can make it at least halfway back to his own trailer before the strain of this breaks him in half. See you on set in a couple days!”

He doesn’t look back as he yanks the door open and purposefully jumps the steps, intending to spend no more time in Jaebum’s trailer than he needs to. Jinyoung thinks he might hear Jaebum sigh like he’s going to call out to him, but Jinyoung is already crunching loudly through the gravel in the opposite direction. 

  
  
  


He almost makes it to the door of his own trailer across the lot before he drops to his hands and knees in the cold, eyes closed against the hurt.

_ Almost.  _

  
  


** 

 

Jackson, laid out on his back in just jeans and no shirt, swallows roughly like he’s nervous. “You know we don’t have to practice for this...right?”

“Yah, you’re really going to kill my vibe like this?” Jinyoung whines, but slaps Jackson’s bare chest with his palm and laughs. He’s wearing considerably less, naked except for the boxer briefs pulled up low on his hips, and is straddling Jackson’s lap on the bed of Jackson’s trailer. “We were doing so well!”

With a grin, Jackson folds both arms behind his head and watches as Jinyoung just quietly admires the exposed width of his chest without replying right away. 

It’s interesting to him that the dynamic of their relationship had changed so quickly. From the beginning they both knew that whatever it was, their chemistry, it wasn’t official. There was a spark, sure, but it was born out of lust and a mutual respect. It had always been their unspoken agreement that the messing around and hooking up was fine until one or both of them settled into something more serious; they were never tied down to one another, either, but the convenience of always being together made it hard to really  _ look  _ beyond the lot. Even so, Jinyoung had told Yugyeom at the club that he wasn’t upset that Jackson had seemed to take an interest in Mark. And it wasn’t a lie. Jinyoung had felt guilty that he used Jackson’s attention to comfort himself of the hurt caused by Jaebum, but knowing that maybe Jackson had someone else in mind, too, eases it just a little. Because of this, he thinks that the transition into their friendship is one that came gracefully.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Jackson asks. He lifts an arm to tap on Jinyoung’s nose before tucking it behind his head again. “Your face got very serious all of the sudden.”

Jinyoung hums. He’s not exactly sure if he should tell Jackson about what happened at the club a few days ago, or the moment in Jaebum’s trailer that followed it. They’ve been busy reading lines while Jaebum and the rest of the crew have been wrapping up the last of the flashback scenes where neither Jinyoung or Jackson were required, so he hasn’t even seen Jaebum around the lot. It doesn’t hurt any less three days down the road but he can, at the very least, fake it a little better.

“How’s things with Mark?”

Surprised, Jackson blanches. His cheeks flush red and Jinyoung glances away from his face as to not laugh. “Um, what?”

“Don’t be coy with me, hyung.” Jinyoung pokes him playfully on his bare stomach. “You’re into him, right?”

“How do you….”

“I’m not an idiot,” Jinyoung says, lifting his leg back over Jackson’s hip and scooting back so he can stand up off the bed. Jackson not-so-subtly eyes the line of his body for a moment before meeting his eyes. “Don’t try to deflect.”

Jackson frowns. “I’m not! It’s not my fault you have such a nice body.” Jackson sighs wistfully. “I wish I could see you naked…”

Laughing, Jinyoung reaches for the pillow they’d kicked to the floor and lightly starts beating Jackson around the legs with it. Jackson laughs and sits up, trying to grab it away from him to hit back when Jinyoung steps backward and takes the pillow with him, grinning genuinely even though his chest has ceased to hurt.

“Very funny.” Jinyoung checks his watch. “Actually, you know we have to be on set to film that soon, right? In about an hour.”

“Really?” Jackson looks up from where he’d been putting his socks on. “Already?”

“Yes, but you never answered my question.”

“Which was?”

“How things are going with Mark.”

“Ahh…” Jackson hesitates, flushing lightly again. “It’s…” he takes a deep breath, looking sheepish as though he’s afraid that his own good news will hurt Jinyoung’s feelings. God, are he and Jaebum that obvious? “They’re good. Yeah. He’s really nice. Good in bed, too.”

Jinyoung laughs--of course he’s not hurt by this, and feels relieved that Jackson has someone. “That’s good, hyung. I’m glad you’re happy.”

There’s a slight pause from Jackson’s end as Jinyoung busies himself with finding his pajama shirt and slipping back into it. Finally, as he’s pulling up his jeans, Jackson says,

“Are  _ you?” _

He freezes. “Um--”

“Look,” Jackson says, and his hands rub together nervously where they’re hanging between his knees. “I don’t--I don’t know what’s going on between you guys, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to--”

Jinyoung’s stomach drops. “Hyung, it’s nothing--”

“It’s not, though,” Jackson interrupts. His handsome eyebrows furrow in real concern and it makes Jinyoung just feel worse somehow. “Come on. You don’t think I haven’t seen the way you guys look at each other? I’ve known him for quite a long time, Jinyoungie. I know him. You don’t think I see the way he looks at you?”

There is nothing to say, so Jinyoung continues to stare at the ground with his hands balled to painful fists at his sides.

“Yugyeom told me that night at the club that Jaebum had approached you and took you somewhere private to talk.”

“We  _ did  _ talk.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Jackson snorts, but not unkindly. “But I don’t think you’d be so torn up about it if that was all it was.”

Now dressed, Jinyoung sits down heavily on the couch of Jackson’s trailer and tries not to scream. He can either draw this out by denying anything happened over and over and just accept the pitying looks from Jackson from blatant lies or he can just tell him what happened and get it over with. The sooner he does, the more likely he is to sort through his feelings sooner and maybe make it out of this not-thing with Im Jaebum alive. Shooting is almost over, anyway--they have less than a month and they’re done for good. 

Minus the premiere and some press runs, he won’t ever have to see Im Jaebum ever again.

_ Is that really what you want? _

Ignoring this, Jinyoung just swallows. “How much do you know already?”

“Just what I got told.”

Jinyoung’s head whips to the side, eyes wide in alarm. “What do you mean? Who would have told you?”

“Relax,” Jackson soothes. He puts his hands up, palms out, in a gesture of  _ please don’t kill me.  _ “At the club, Yugyeom told me that you were going to leave separately because Jaebum had cornered you. He disappeared after that, I’m not sure if he left completely or just went somewhere else. I was already really drunk and didn’t really think about it...” he trails off, looking sheepish with a light blush across his cheeks, but keeps going. “And then when I met with Jaebum the other day--”

Now Jinyoung’s alarm bells are  _ really  _ starting to ring. He jumps to his feet, surprise and outrage flooding him all at once in an awful mixture of hot and cold. “You  _ what?”  _

“Please let me finish,” Jackson pleads, as though he can see the steadily rising insanity on Jinyoung’s face and recognizes that he’s three seconds away from a meltdown. “He didn’t tell me anything. Okay? He didn’t even say it was about  _ you.  _ He didn’t mention that night at all. I knew he was there and that he was drinking but I left with Mark and didn’t see him for a long time before that, anyway.”

“Jackson, why are you telling me this?” Jinyoung’s heart feels like it’s pulling itself to pieces. It beats too loudly in his ears and he can feel the rush in his thighs telling him that the only thing he can do is run until he finds Jaebum and can wrap both hands around his neck. “How is this even related--?”

“Because he told me he made a mistake.” Jackson sighs and watches him for a reaction. Where there isn’t one, he keeps going. “That’s all he said. We went to have lunch and I told him that he looked tired, and I asked him if the movie is taking its toll on him. He just laughed. But it wasn’t a good laugh, and that’s when I knew that something bad had to have happened between you. I asked him what was wrong if it wasn’t the movie and all he said was ‘Jackson-ah, I made a really big mistake’.” 

“A--a  _ mistake?”  _ It’s like this is the only piece of what Jackson said that he’d actually heard. The word echoes in his head, bouncing off all the other thoughts until his mind is a mess of angry, hurting, buzzing like disturbed bees. “He said he made a  _ mistake?”  _

Jackson, who has gone paper white in the face, seems to realize that he had maybe just put his foot in his mouth. “Jinyoung, he didn’t tell me what happened, so I don’t know what he meant by that--”

“Don’t worry,” Jinyoung spits, unfairly angry; it’s not even Jackson he’s angry at, of course, but he’s the closest person to the eye of the storm and by unfortunate circumstance that means he will be swept up in it. Jinyoung spins on his heel to shove his feet into his tennis shoes by the door and holds his breath. “I know exactly what he meant--”

Just then, a solid knocking on the door interrupts what Jinyoung had been about to say. There’s a voice speaking on the other side of it, but the insistent, dizzying whirlwind of his thoughts is too loud to filter it out. Despite it not being his trailer, Jinyoung yanks the door open, anyway.

Jaebum is standing at the bottom of the steps, turned halfway and speaking into the phone in a low voice. The frigid air has turned the tips of his ears pink where they’re sticking out from beneath a black beanie pulled down over his messy hair. A few loose strands have curled into commas on his forehead. Dressed innocuously in an oversized sweatshirt and ripped pants, he looks so devastatingly normal and handsome that, for just a moment, Jinyoung forgets he’s supposed to be angry.

But then he turns, having dropped his hand where he was pinching the high bridge of his nose in annoyance. Their eyes meet and his phone drops to his side, forgotten, a tinny voice squeaking out of the speaker until they get frustrated and hang up. Jinyoung, jacket-less, holds the door open for the cold breeze to blow the edges of his shirt back as the two of them lock eyes. Jinyoung dares him to say something. Anything.

_ Tell me to my face it was a mistake, you bastard.  _

Nothing comes. Jaebum just keeps staring like he’s surprised to see him, and after a couple minutes Jinyoung tires of waiting for him to speak. He rolls his eyes and makes a noise in the back of his throat as he leans backward into Jackson’s trailer from the doorway.

“Director Im is here,” he says coldly, and though he doesn’t see it, Jaebum flinches at the sound of it in unison with Jackson. “I’ll see you on set.”

“Jinyoungie--”

Jinyoung ignores Jackson and jumps the steps, landing next to Jaebum but barely letting his feet hit the ground before he’s walking away. He’s only a few steps ahead when a warm hand grips the top of his arm and pulls him back.

“Hey--” Jaebum grunts when Jinyoung resists. “Where are you going? Where’s your jacket--”

With a noise of pain, Jinyoung spins on his heel and nearly knocks the both of them down when he almost turns right into Jaebum. He digs his blunt nails into the fleshy part of Jaebum’s knuckles, shoving him away by the grip on his arm as hard as he can. 

“Don’t talk to me,” Jinyoung spits savagely, reaching up to push hair out of his face when it falls into his eyes. “I thought we agreed--pretend like nothing happened. You don’t care about me, and I don’t care about you. Wasn’t that the deal? Leave me alone. You’ll see me on set in like twenty minutes anyway.”

Jaebum cradles his hand against his stomach and looks dumbfounded. Jinyoung just turns away, the cold air raising goosebumps on the exposed skin of his arms as he marches toward the building where the set it; if he’s going to survive filming a sex scene with Jackson in front of Jaebum today, then he needs as much time alone as possible to calm down before it starts. Bambam hasn’t always been the  _ best  _ resource for peace, being that the dressing room seems to always be full of people yelling over each other in various languages beneath the sounds of hair dryers, but maybe the chaos will help him drown out everything else.

When he finally makes his way inside and across the set to wardrobe, the room inside is eerily quiet. Bambam is lounging in a makeup chair with his feet propped up on someone’s leg; they turn around at the sound of the door closing quietly and he’s surprised to see that it’s Youngjae. 

“Hi, Jinyoung-ssi,” he says, yelping in surprise when the little white ball of hair in his lap goes careening off to barrel toward Jinyoung. He smiles and crouches down to catch the small dog as it leaps toward him and begs for pets. “Jeez, I’m sorry, she can be really hyper sometimes. Coco-yah! Calm down!” 

Jinyoung laughs as the little dog ignores the desperate pleas of her owner and wriggles in Jinyoung’s arms while licking his face. He scrunches his nose and leans away from her as he stands up and goes over to greet them both properly. 

“You’re kind of early,” Bambam says without looking up. There’s some Thai fashion magazine in his hand that seems to be more interesting than Jinyoung struggling to hold the squirming body of Youngjae’s dog. “Where’s everyone else?” 

He shrugs even though Bambam doesn’t see it. Jinyoung cradles Coco in both arms and looks down at her where she finally settles across his forearm and sticks her nose in the crook of his elbow. He hopes his voice doesn’t sound as strained as he thinks it does when he says, “I don’t know. Director Im was at Jackson’s trailer when I left.”

“Ah, so he went to get you guys after all?” Youngjae asks, and looks sheepish when Jinyoung glances at him with an eyebrow raised. “Sorry, I know it’s not really my business since I just do the soundtrack.” He nods his head toward Bambam. “He invited me for lunch after he was finished with you and Jackson, since everyone has to leave set. I just came by to pick him up. Jaebum hyung was just in here talking to us for a bit, and then said he was going to get you.”

“It’s okay,” Jinyoung says. Despite not knowing Youngjae well, his demeanor from what he’s seen so far is so much different than everyone else’s that he kind of finds himself wishing that Youngjae was on set more. Jinyoung could use a more calm presence these days. “So you’re doing the soundtrack?” 

Youngjae looks at him in surprise, and then nods with a shy flush on his cheeks like he can’t believe Jinyoung is actually asking him a question. “Yes, I’ve been doing the OST for Jaebum hyung’s films for quite a long time. Even before I was a professional and was just making stuff in my dorm at school.”

Bambam finally cuts in; he pushes Youngjae’s knee with a booted foot. “He’s the reason you’re famous in the first place.”

“You guys knew each other, right? Before this?” Jinyoung asks.

Youngjae nods and smiles sweetly. “Yeah. Since we were both kids. He lived down the street from me. Jaebum hyung had just moved into the neighborhood the year that we met and he didn’t have any siblings, so me and my brother invited him to play with us.” Youngjae shrugs. “Been friends ever since.”

There’s something about knowing that Jaebum must have been quite lonely growing up with no siblings that strikes deep in Jinyoung’s heart. He was fortunate: he has two older sisters, some of the most loving people on the planet. No matter how many times he protested them dressing him up in their clothes or holding him down to put makeup on, no matter how many times he tattled on them and got them grounded, they were always there. Even being as angry as he is, his heart aches for him, just a little.

“So he’s an only child?”

Bambam barks a  _ ha!  _ “Can’t you tell?” he asks, and finally puts his magazine down on the counter beside him. He stretches out in the chair before looking up at Jinyoung, eyebrows furrowed. “Yah, Jinyoung-ssi--have you been crying? Your eyes are red--”

Alarmed, Jinyoung juggles the sleeping dog in his arms to free one to wipe across his face. His sleeve comes away dry; he hadn’t been crying, at least, he hadn’t  _ felt  _ it. He just blames it on the cold instead.

“No, it’s just cold outside.” He sniffles for effect. 

The stylist eyes him suspiciously but doesn’t say anything. He shoos Youngjae out of the other chair and instructs Jinyoung to sit down in it, disappearing behind the both of them to mutter to himself as he thumbs the wardrobe racks.

“Did you bring a jacket?” Youngjae asks, coming around Jinyoung’s chair to gently untangle the furry mop splayed across Jinyoung’s arms.  “I’m sure the distance wasn’t far, but still…”

Jinyoung laughs. “No, I didn’t. I was with Jackson and our trailers are close so I didn’t bring one, and then I just came straight here.”

All three of them turn at the sound of voices in the hallway outside; he can hear Jackson talking and laughing, but can’t hear Jaebum’s voice so he wonders who he’s talking to. Youngjae just sighs sweetly at the dog curling up on his arms and flashes Jinyoung a pretty smile.

“Yeah, Jaebum hyung says you do that a lot.”

His heart stops. He tries to remain casual as he looks at Youngjae in the mirror and asks, “do what a lot?”

“Not wear a jacket.” Youngjae laughs. “He told me that every time he sees you, it seems like you’re not wearing a jacket. Drives him nuts.” the door behind them opens and Jackson enters, heartily greeting Bambam with a headlock and a ruffle of his bleached-white hair that the two of them watch in the mirror. Youngjae nudges Jinyoung’s shoulder with an elbow just before he goes to leave the room. “For my sanity, just wear a jacket, huh? He already complains about everything, let’s leave this one off the list.” 

Before Jinyoung can say anything, Youngjae is scooping up his bag and saying goodbye to all of them. There’s a brief moment after he passes through the door where he can hear him greeting Jaebum, but then the wardrobe door closes and the three of them are pent up in a tense silence perpetuated by the nervous looks Jackson keeps throwing at him in the mirror.

“Yah,” Jinyoung says irritably. “If you have something to say, hyung, just say it.”

“I’m sorry,” he gushes, lifting his arms when Bambam pokes him, but keeping his eyes on Jinyoung in the mirror. “I don’t know what happened, but I shouldn’t have said anything. You just seemed upset about it and I thought that it might help, but it just seemed to make it worse.”

“A little,” Jinyoung says, but manages half a smile to ease Jackson’s nerves. Jackson smiles back in relief.

“What did you say to him when you left?”

Jinyoung looks back up at him. “When?”

“Just now, when you left my trailer. You seemed angry that it was him, and then you just stormed off. I heard you say something to him and then when I finally came out, he looked really shaken up.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jinyoung says flatly, looking away, effectively ending that line of questioning. 

From somewhere behind Jinyoung’s marked garment racks, Bambam’s disembodied voice floats to them. “Hmmm, trouble in paradise, Jinyoung-ssi?” 

“Paradise is the  _ last  _ word I would use to describe it,” Jackson answers for him, gracefully turning Bambam’s attention to Jackson instead of him. 

_ I can handle it,  _ he wants to say, meeting Jackson’s eyes for a brief moment in the mirror, there and gone again as Bambam dresses him. But he doesn’t say it, unsure if it’s actually true.

The usual noise of the studio when a shoot is approaching, loud and voracious with activity, is eerily missing. Jinyoung knows that the shooting of a sex scene is something Jaebum takes seriously and while he appreciates the air of caution in which they’re approaching it, he finds himself wishing that there were more people on set to offer him distractions. As it is, Bambam ushers them out of the wardrobe and makeup room after getting them dressed and waves goodbye with a careless swinging of his bag on his tiny hip. 

Jackson leads him out to the sets and the silence there is even worse: it’s deserted, with only one camera operator standing behind a camera and whispering to the audio technician while pointing at the screen. Everything else, every other post, is empty: no lights, no boom operator, no PAs. The synchronized sound of his and Jackson’s footsteps on the floor seems to echo deafeningly in the silence.

Not counting themselves as they make their way to the hotel set and find their marks taped into the floor, there are only three other people in the room for a total of five. The camera operator, Jinwoon, the audio technician that Jinyoung can’t remember the name of, and Jaebum, who is sitting in his director’s chair on the edge of the carpeted floor of the hotel set and watching them with a blank expression.

The lack of emotion of Jaebum’s face makes Jinyoung more nervous than the inevitability of getting naked in front of him. It’s his first time being completely naked on camera for a film, sure, but his role in Lee Minho’s movie involved being in his underwear for about 90% of it, so he’s really not that worried about the  _ idea  _ of it. It’s more so the fact that he can feel Jaebum’s eyes burning two holes in his back as he stares down Jackson and wishes, more than anything, that he could go back in time.

What had he told Taecyeon?  _ As much as we fight and as much as I want to strangle him or walk out and quit, I don’t regret it. _

That was before, of course. Before they had kissed for real and before the conflicting storm of Im Jaebum’s past and present had sucked him in and drowned him right inside the eye of it. Jackson’s dark eyes gleam in the low, ambient light of the faux hotel and Jinyoung wonders if it’s still true, that he doesn’t regret getting this role, that he doesn’t regret pushing Taecyeon so hard for something that ultimately hurt Jinyoung more than rejection ever could.

“Are you alright?” Jackson asks under his breath, eyes flicking over his shoulder to look at Jaebum where he’s talking to the camera operator. Jinyoung hears him say something about  _ no matter what, just keep rolling, we can edit stuff out in post  _ but he’s not really listening. He can’t really hear over the thundering of his heart, anyway. 

“Yeah,” Jinyoung says, but isn’t sure if that’s true. “Are you?” 

Jackson smiles; it does little to reassure him even though it should. “Of course. I get to kiss you and then basically sleep with you again and get paid for it. What’s not to like?”

It makes him chuckle a bit, and Jackson smiles happily that he’d been able to relieve eve the smallest bit of tension from Jinyoung’s body. Even if he’s still coiled too tight like a spring about to break, he just has to remember that this is Jackson and they can do this. If he pretends like there’s no one else in the room, this will go smoothly and will be over before they know it. 

Jaebum’s voice from the other morning comes back to him suddenly, a hammer to the head.  _ Pretending nothing happened will just be easier.  _

Jinyoung turns, feet planted on the floor, to look over his shoulder at him almost like Jaebum had said it out loud. Their eyes meet and before Jinyoung can decipher the emotion pulled taut around Jaebum’s mouth, he calls out.

“Action!” 

The scene starts well; Jinyoung can almost forget about how hard Jaebum had been on him when they first started filming this movie, always telling him to stop and start over for seemingly no reason at all. He can hear the chair Jaebum is sitting in creak as he sits forward, entranced, watching the culmination of all the tension between Jinyoung’s character and Jackson’s start to unravel like loose string. Normally Jinyoung would be proud to be doing so well, Jaebum not stopping them even once, but the burning hole in the center of him from Jaebum’s eyes never leaving him makes his confidence shake.

He’s so confused by everything. Every time he thinks he has Jaebum figured out, he just does a 180 and leaves Jinyoung more in the dark about him than before. Little pieces of Jaebum’s life outside of filming have been fed to him bit by bit, but all he has is the tattered edges of a black and white puzzle with no clear picture. Worse still is the way Jaebum always seems to be about to reveal himself to Jinyoung but, at the last moment, someone always flinches. Like injured animals they always lash out and the moment drowns, pushed further and further away.

His thoughts refuse to slow down: they race at a hundred miles an hour, and the lines for this scene come out of him on autopilot. It warps his performance in a way he hadn’t been expecting: instead of haughty, or angry, it comes off as confused and maybe a little scared; he would have thought that Jaebum would be upset about this, but the few times he catches his eyes as he and Jackson move around each other in a delicately choreographed dance, his cat-shaped eyes are wide. Enraptured. He sits forward in his chair with his hands on the thin wooden arms of it and can’t get enough of the way Jinyoung's eyes start to water with emotion that isn’t faked.

“‘Listen to me,’” Jackson says, coming forward, hands roughly gripping the front of Jinyoung’s loose t-shirt. En Lai at this point is desperate, unable to hold back on how he feels any longer, no matter how detrimental it is to the secret investigation between the two of them. Jinyoung, as Jaewon, allows himself to be grabbed by the green fabric of an alumni shirt belonging to his brother and yanked forward. “‘No matter what happens, I won’t let them hurt you.’”

“‘I wish I could believe you,’” Jinyoung whispers, and his body begins to fold. 

His fingers thread in Jackson’s hair, pulling him down, not quite kissing yet, but close. It reminds him of the night Jaebum had pushed him against the wall and done the same thing. His body starts to shake and Jackson, caught off guard, goes off script. 

“Are you alright? God, you’re shaking so much--”

But Jinyoung just uses the raging of emotion in him to adlib off of it. “‘Then hold me. Hold me, hyung.’”

The room is so quiet that, when Jackson finally kisses him, he can hear the sharp intake of breath from Jaebum’s direction. 

Jackson’s hands slide down his arms, moving to his back to pull him closer as Jinyoung’s arms snake behind his neck to hold on as he’s lifted off his feet. Jinyoung’s legs wrap around Jackson’s waist and, turned away from the camera with his face in Jinyoung’s neck and kissing it, Jackson murmurs to him.

“Are you really okay? You’re worrying me--”

But Jinyoung just nods, aware that the camera is still rolling and, Jaebum in the room or not, they have a scene to shoot. The emotion flooding Jinyoung’s chest is unnameable, too heavy to carry, and he whimpers as Jackson’s teeth scrape the sensitive skin of his neck.

“‘Hyung,’” he breathes, leaning back to look at Jackson’s face, who just looks like Jackson and not En Lai; the coals in his stomach have started to warm and the difference between acting and being real has started to melt. “‘Take me to bed.’”

And Jackson does; he carries Jinyoung toward the bed, setting him down with both feet on the floor to run his hands up Jinyoung’s back. Jackson’s fingers curl underneath the hem of his t-shirt, edging it up as he runs his hands back in the opposite direction and taking the shirt with it. 

“Wait,” Jinyoung breathes, face buried in Jackson’s shoulder. It’s not in the script, but Jinyoung has already given up on following the script so closely as he pulls away just enough to get his hands on Jackson’s shoulders and tug. He turns them so that the backs of Jackson’s knees hit the edge of the bed and, in surprise, he sits down heavily with a soft noise from his mouth as Jinyoung stays standing between the open V of his legs.

“Let me,” he whispers, eyes trained on Jackson’s, terrified of looking anywhere else and losing his confidence. Jackson’s hands stay on his waist as Jinyoung crosses his arms over his chest and grips the bottom of his shirt, slowly, torturously, pulling it up the length of his lean body. The world disappears as he drags the green fabric over his neck and when his head comes free with a quiet gasp, he makes the mistake of looking up. 

He makes eye contact with Jaebum, leaned back in his chair now. Jinyoung glances down to see Jaebum’s own legs spread in a wide V, bottom lip pulled between his teeth almost like he’s not aware he’s doing it.

The coals that had started to warm in Jinyoung’s stomach explode into flames. 

Jinyoung puts his hands on Jackson with a renewed fervor; Jackson looks surprised, but goes with it as he helps Jinyoung’s shaking hands undo the buttons of his dress-shirt and groans when Jinyoung is tugging it off roughly. Jinyoung’s heart has started to pound madly in his chest, skin hot, fingers toying at the button of his jeans like he’s going to pop them but unable to until he glances over and sees Jaebum still watching him like he’s the only thing in the room.

He has to swallow the moan that crawls up his throat. Jinyoung guides Jackson’s hands to the front of his jeans, tipping his head back as he tries to control his breathing as the warm skin of Jackson’s knuckles brush the taut skin of his belly above his waistband. Jaebum’s eyes so obviously laser focused on him in this moment makes him feel feverish, dazed. Crazy.

“Hyung,” he moans, off script, gasping when Jackson curls his fingers in the waistband of Jinyoung’s jeans and yanks them down to his thighs. “Hyung!” 

“Take these off.” Jackson groans; it’s not technically in the script, but it works, and Jinyoung obeys as he balances his hands on Jackson’s bare shoulders to kick off his jeans and stand between his legs in his underwear. He starts to follow the script for a moment, running a palm down Jinyoung’s chest to his belly, murmuring loud enough to be heard, “‘look at you, you’re so beautiful. You’ve been driving me crazy since the day you walked into that precinct. All fire and blood.’”

Jackson uses one hand to undo the zipper on his dress pants, caressing Jinyoung’s body with the other while muttering his lines. But the room has fallen away; Jinyoung is no longer standing in front of Jackson in just his underwear with a visible erection. The world around him has faded to the haziness of his dream, the one where he straddles Jaebum’s strong hips with his knees pressed to the bone. Jackson’s voice has drowned underneath the echoing of Jaebum’s, the deep vibrato as he moaned  _ Jinyoung-ah, Jinyoung-ah,  _ with the hot weight of his body pinning him to the door. 

Their eyes meet across the distance; Jinyoung doesn’t look away. He holds Jaebum’s eyes as Jackson’s hands turn into the ghost of Jaebum’s hands and drag themselves down the flat expanse of his belly, to his hips, around to his ass where they grab hard. Jinyoung’s mouth drops open in response and he watches the way the darkness of Jaebum’s eyes deepens, swallowed by the pupil, planets devoured.

“Hyung,” Jinyoung moans, but it is not directed at Jackson; Jackson, however, is so focused on following the script of kissing Jinyoung’s stomach that he doesn’t notice. Jaebum shifts in his chair, head tilted down, watching Jinyoung from half lidded eyes as Jinyoung amps up the sensuality and grabs the back of Jackson’s head. “Hyung, I want you.”

Jaebum’s eyes close for a moment, bottom lip disappearing between his teeth, and a surge of adrenaline mixed with triumph rushes Jinyoung’s blood. Jackson lays down on his back on the bed and pulls Jinyoung with him; his hands are searching, sliding along skin, dress pants open and visibly hard through the pulled-down zipper. Jinyoung’s whimpered plea of  _ hyung, I want you,  _ hangs heavily in the air.

The blood rushes down. Jinyoung feels dizzy, body burning, feeling Jackson’s hands on him but picturing Jaebum’s instead despite the fact that one is curled into a tight fist on the arm of his director’s chair and the other is hidden in his lap. The skin of Jaebum’s cheeks is flushed deep red, shaded with hot blood, and he lets go of his swollen bottom lip with a noise barely audible beneath Jackson’s heavy breath as Jinyoung straddles his hips. 

“‘Tell me you want this,’” Jackson moans, hands on his thighs, fingertips beneath the legs of his boxers. It would jar him to hear Jaebum’s words coming out of Jackson’s mouth as part of the script, but Jinyoung isn’t listening. His own eyes are half open, heavy, watching Jaebum shift uncomfortably in his chair as Jinyoung’s blush spreads down his chest. “‘Tell me you need it.’”

He just hears this in Jaebum’s voice, anyway; pinned beneath Jinyoung’s body in his dream the way Jackson is now.  _ Tell me you want this. Tell me you need it. _

“I want it, hyung,” he moans, hands blind on Jackson’s waistband. Jackson’s breath comes heavy and loud as he works Jinyoung’s boxers down his thighs. His cock comes free, already hard, and he doesn’t miss the way that Jaebum’s eyes flick down the length of him to see it. It makes Jinyoung’s body burn hotter like hellfire, and it twitches heavily between his legs as he plants his palms on Jackson’s bare chest. 

“Hyung, I need it.” 

This time, the noise that Jaebum makes is audible, even over his own. It’s a chest deep groan, choked off at the end like he’d caught it too late to keep it quiet. Jinyoung holds his eyes and grins at him as sweat gathers in the hair at his temples and starts to drip down the curve of his jaw. 

Jackson, on a completely different planet, just follows the script. His hands disappear between Jinyoung’s thighs; being an indie film they’ve been given a little more freedom to make the sex real, and Jinyoung doesn’t hold back on the moan when Jackson’s fingers slip between his legs and inside of him. Jinyoung’s eyes roll back and he shudders, full body, immediately reopening them to watch as Jaebum bites the knuckles of his free hand while the other has flattened to a palm and grinds down against the obvious bulge of his dick where it's hard in his jeans. 

He can’t help it: he moans, “oh, fuck,” and drops his head between his shoulders as Jackson just murmurs lines that Jinyoung doesn’t hear. Anything that isn’t his breath and the whimpered, stuttered noises escaping from between Jaebum’s gritted teeth disappears like sugar in hot water.

_ Jinyoung-ah. Jinyoung-ah. You don’t know how bad I wanted this.  _

“Fuck,” Jinyoung moans, Jaebum’s voice echoing in his head. He looks up and Jaebum has knocked his beanie off somehow, the black cap folded awkwardly on the floor behind his chair as he spreads his legs wider. The heel of his hand follows an obvious line in his jeans, pressing down hard, drawing out audible noises from his chest. He wonders deliriously if Jaebum remembers saying that. He repeats it, just in case.

“Hyung,” he whimpers, spreading his own legs wider on top of Jackson’s lap as he reaches between them to position his cock underneath the curve of his ass like he’s going to enter him. Jinyoung just holds Jaebum’s half-lidded eyes as his shoulder dips and rises with the movement of his insistent hand against his dick in his jeans. “You don’t know how bad I wanted this.”

Jaebum whimpers audibly. The fire in Jinyoung’s body burns hotter, engulfing him, charring his insides as Jackson positions him better so that he can start to roll his hips against him in a mimicry of riding him. He mutters his lines to an unresponsive Jinyoung, whose eyes are focused on the way Jaebum shifts and rocks his hips into his hand like he can’t help it, like he’s dying for more. Every conflicting emotion absolutely fighting for the spotlight but being beaten down by the pink film of Jinyoung’s lust; this he can control, unlike the others, and he commands it, a king, and Jaebum is helpless against the force of it.

They watch each other as Jinyoung’s hips move, Jackson obviously hard and reacting to the way the swell of Jinyoung’s ass slides against his length. It feels good, sex with Jackson always felt good, but the added element of Jaebum watching and being unable to control himself makes Jinyoung feel delirious. No matter how strained their relationship is, or lack thereof, the only thought that exists inside of Jinyoung’s head is how badly he wants Jaebum to hold him down right here and touch him with the hand stroking his cock over his jeans. 

And it seems Jaebum is the same--he hasn’t looked away once, except to close his eyes, always finding Jinyoung again when they open and locking his sight on him like if he blinks the image will disappear. The tempo of Jinyoung’s breath speeds up to match his hips, rolling in Jackson’s lap, the friction of the folded down waistband of his dress pants rubbing the back of Jinyoung’s thigh raw. He plants one hand against the broadest part of Jackson’s chest and arches his back, giving Jaebum an uninterrupted view of the length of his lean body; beads of sweat make tracks down the column of his neck and slip down his stomach to collect on the edge of his navel. Jinyoung watches Jaebum devour the sight of him from down the length of his nose as he tilts his head back and, off script, grips his aching cock in one hand. 

Jackson, underneath him, gasps. They’re technically supposed to cut before either of them finish, but Jaebum is flushed down to the neck and sweating in his hoodie, and if Jinyoung can’t have him the way he wants him, then he can have him like this, pinned beneath the weight of his lust like a butterfly to a board.

“Hyung,” he moans, for Jaebum, and not Jackson and not Jackson’s character. His long fingers flex near the base of his cock and it leaks precum onto Jackson’s exposed belly, gleaming in the low light of the studio. Without thinking Jinyoung runs his fingers through it and uses it to stroke himself, slow, eyes on Jaebum through the curtain of his lashes.

It fills him with some feeling to see Jaebum bent to his will like this. His fingers curl against the bulge in his jeans and if either of them had any sensibility, they wouldn’t be so open about this; they are not, as they so feel, alone in the room. But Jinyoung’s desire for some affirmation from Jaebum about any kind of feeling, any at all, has swollen fit to bursting and it drowns the parts of himself that know this will do nothing else but hurt when it’s over. 

But the way Jaebum looks at him like a dying man finding salvation makes Jinyoung willing to be a martyr, to set himself on fire over and over if it means that it will feel like this, that Jaebum will watch him with his lip between his teeth and his hand working his cock over his jeans to the image of Jinyoung’s lean body and the whimpering of  _ hyung, hyung, I need it.  _ It’s so close to his dream that Jinyoung wonders if, perhaps, it had been a vision, instead, and the thought of Jaebum’s hands on him for real makes him cry out in pleasure.

“Fuck!” He whimpers, tempo of his hand stuttering; Jackson is still focused on the moment and guiding Jinyoung’s hips down harder against him. Jackson tries to grab his wrist to help him but Jinyoung knocks it away and continues to stroke himself, faster now.

“Watch me, hyung,” he says breathlessly, looking at Jaebum when he says it, but directing his voice at Jackson. Jackson responds with a low groan and a deep  _ I’m watching, I’m watching, you’re so beautiful.  _ “Keep your eyes on me.”

And Jaebum obeys. His eyes never leave Jinyoung’s face, his body, his fingers where they curl tighter around his shaft, slipping up over the head to tease himself to whimpering. Jaebum’s thighs squeeze together, fall apart; his hand pressed down so hard against his crotch his knuckles are white. Jinyoung squeezes his eyes shut as the tingling starts up in his knees and spreads to his thighs. He opens them again, falling on Jaebum’s face, and he watches in wonder as Jaebum’s swollen lips mouth his name. 

_ Jinyoung-ah.  _

_ Jinyoung-ah. _

With a short cry and a quick jerk of his wrist, Jinyoung comes messily up his stomach and collapses backward against the support of Jackson’s thighs. 

“Oh, my god,” Jackson pants, holding him down in his lap as his own orgasm begins to shudder through him; he discreetly reaches between them to readjust his cock so that when he does finally come, he does so into the fabric of his boxer briefs and not against Jinyoung’s skin. It wouldn’t have mattered; he wouldn’t have felt it. His focus is on where Jaebum falls heavily against the back of his director’s chair, chest heaving and face flushed red, watching Jinyoung pant on top of Jackson before he abruptly stands up and leaves. 

Shocked, Jinwoon shoves his headphones off and steps away from the camera that he’d long stopped watching, phone in hand. “Yo! Directornim! Where are you going?” 

Jaebum doesn’t answer. His whole body is stiff with tension where he storms out of the room, the heavy metal door in the back hallway slamming shut and echoing in the silence. Jinyoung closes his eyes as the lust rushes out and the pain floods in.

“Um, cut, I guess,” Jinwoon says awkwardly, turning the camera off and hanging his headphones off the back of it. He avoids looking at either of them as he nods in the direction of the towel that the audio tech had brought from the wardrobe room before mysteriously disappearing a long time ago. “Okay. Bye.”

Jinwoon leaves, then, the closing of the door echoing once more as Jackson drops bonelessly to the hard prop mattress and Jinyoung climbs off of him to pull up his boxer briefs and grab the towel off the chair. He wipes off his stomach with his back to Jackson, trying to decide if he’s going to scream or cry, or maybe both. He bites his lip hard and tries to pull the mask up before he turns and tosses it to him. 

“Jinyoungie, are you okay?” Jackson asks, cleaning himself up the best he can and making a face when he pulls his sticky boxers up. Jinyoung wants to ask him why he doesn’t just change in the wardrobe room really quick but finds he doesn’t have the energy.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he says, surprised when his voice is steady. His insides feel anything  _ but  _ steady, a tiny fishing boat being tossed about on monstrous waves. “Thirsty, but fine. Why? Are you?”

Jackson laughs; if he senses any part of Jinyoung’s response to be a lie, he doesn’t mention it. “Yeah. I’m more than fine.” he blinks and nudges Jinyoung’s bare ribs with an elbow just before Jinyoung pulls his shirt back on. “You’re kinky, you know that?”

He laughs, too, and it’s mostly real. Not completely, but mostly. “Shut up. No I’m not.”

“Yes huh!” Jackson whines. “Half of that wasn’t even in the script! You were just enjoying yourself, weren’t you?” 

He closes his eyes and pictures Jaebum’s face while he roughly rubbed a hand against the crotch of his jeans. His stomach throbs. “Yeah, I was.”

“This is probably going to get an NC-17 rating now, since you came on camera.” Jackson smiles and leads him to the wardrobe room to gather the things they’d left. “But I bet you like that. Don’t you?” 

Jinyoung flushes. He didn’t really know if he had a thing for getting watched, per se, but apparently he does. “Yah, you came too, you know.”

“I know. See? You’re kinky.”

“Shut up, hyung.”

Jackson throws an arm around his shoulders and yanks him close. He plants a kiss on his cheek and it feels friendly, not sexually charged like it might have been. Jinyoung wonders if the sexual nature of their relationship really has died for good and they can just go on like normal friends. He finds that he can’t stop thinking about the sweat on Jaebum’s neck and realizes that it’s probably for the best.

“Do you want me to come hang out with you tonight?” Jackson asks once they’re outside. The sun has set and Jinyoung is surprised--he hadn’t thought shooting lasted that long, but it must have, since it was late afternoon when they started. Jinyoung crosses his arms over his chest against the cold win and furrows his brows as it assaults the exposed skin of his face.

“Nah,” Jinyoung says, stopping near the deserted tables of the food tents. “I might go home and hang out with Yugyeom tonight, actually.”

“You sure?” 

Jinyoung pulls his arms tighter around himself and sits down on one of the benches. “Yeah, I’m going to call him right now and see what’s up. Go do your own thing, hyung. I’ll see you again in a couple days when we film at the courthouse.”

With a nod, Jackson pats his shoulder and jogs off in the direction of his trailer; it’s around the corner from the rest, and he waits until Jackson is out of sight before he drops his face in his hands and takes the kind of long, shaking breath that comes just before tears. He doesn’t cry, though; his eyes stay dry even as the storm rains torrential downpour in his heart. 

By the time he finally stands up to head to his own trailer, the street lamps in the lot have come on and the cold of the night has made his joints stiff and achey. He sniffles and rubs at the frozen tip of his nose as he walks in a daze toward his trailer, thoughts a mess, body aching. The image of Jaebum like that is stained against his eyelids, juxtaposed beneath the other images of him, every image of him that Jinyoung has, layer upon layer of confusion to make up a picture that’s still missing all the pieces. His shoes crunch the cold gravel in time like a metronome only for him to end up outside the wrong door.

Amber light washes over him, and he looks up to see that he’d ended up outside of Jaebum’s door instead of his own. There’s a light on inside that seeps through the shuttered blinds, blocking the interior from view, but he knows it means Jaebum’s inside. He blinks at the metal of the door starting to ice over from condensation and wonders if he had a purpose for coming here, or if his body had just guided him here without reason. 

He thinks about every time that Jaebum had shown Jinyoung a different side of himself. How, instead of glacial cold, he could be warm with his touches. How he could smile, how he could laugh, even if it wasn’t directed at him. How he had been confused that Jinyoung thought he hated him and wanted to fire him. He thinks about how there had been these tiny, minuscule glimpses inside the fortress of Jaebum’s heart and yet it hadn’t been enough. The beast that lurks in the labyrinth of Jaebum’s past continues to hunt him, and Jinyoung isn’t sure how much longer he can allow himself to be prey.

_ There was never anything between us. There was never anything, there is never going to be anything. _

“Why did I come here?” Jinyoung wonders aloud. He pulls the shutters down over his heart and turns on his heel in the gravel, walking to his trailer on autopilot and shutting the door behind him. 

If he had turned around, even once, he would have seen Jaebum standing in the doorway of his own trailer, where he had been the whole time Jinyoung stood outside alone in the cold.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am not my rosy self  
> left my roses on my shelf  
> take the wild ones, they're my favorites  
> it's the side effects that save us  
>   
> [grace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81yl_r5lT4w)

 

Do you really think you’re going to make it big, Jinyoung-ah?

_ The remark, made in passing, hands busy on his waist, made it hurt so much more than it should have. It was just a question, maybe an honest evaluation of his self worth had it come from someone else. If one of his sisters had asked, for instance; those who had sat through his living room performances with begrudging eyerolls but nonetheless finishing with standing ovations, if they had asked, he would have laughed. Said, yah, noona. I’m going to be a star.  _

_ But the assistant to head of the theatre department was not one of those people. He was older than Jinyoung by a couple years, somewhat established in his own circle of the theatre, and so perhaps it had given him a complex. Jinyoung had come to him for advice—he had offered, offhandedly, to give Jinyoung acting pointers privately, if he wanted.  _ Come see me in my office sometime, Jinyoungie, and I’ll give you some tips.  _ That kind of thing. The kind of thing his theatre department sunbaes warned him about but he ignored because he was young and naive and like the attention. _

_ He had pushed Taegun away a little by the shoulders, feelings hurt.  _ Yah, hyung. What do you mean by that?

_ Taegun didn’t want to listen; he never did. His offer had quickly dissolved into interest and instead of practicing they often ended up just having sex in his office after campus was largely closed. Maybe it should have bothered him right away, but the attention was exhilarating at first, and despite the badness of it, perhaps his heart of hearts considered the connections to be made from knowing Lee Taegun so intimately. Jinyoung’s naive, starstruck heart had skipped so many lines.  _

_ Taegun’s lips were swollen, cherry red from kissing his neck. He blinked.  _ I just mean—do you really think you’re going to get famous? You know how hard it is to break out. 

Do you not believe in me?  _ Jinyoung asked and Taegun sighed. Their relationship was anything but; it was hook ups in the office and some exchanged text messages and, once, a nice dinner Taegun invited him to. But it was not a relationship, and Jinyoung knew that, and so he should not have been hurt by Taegun’s lack of confidence in Jinyoung’s ability to break into the acting world.  _

_ But Taegun was respected, and Jinyoung equated that respect with automatic success. He felt an urgent need to be validated by Taegun, for a reason he couldn’t fathom, but he could feel it. He could feel the wild way he needed to impress Taegun. The itch he couldn’t scratch.  _

_ Taegun leaned away and started buttoning up his shirt with one hand while the other fixed his messy hair.  _ It’s not that I don’t believe in you, Jinyoung. I just think you should be realistic. 

I  _ am  _ being realistic,  _ he’d said, cheeks warm with a strange shame.  _

_ Taegun had finished redressing and moved around where he had Jinyoung pinned to the desk to sit in the large cushioned chair behind it. It was clear that this was going to be a dismissal. Jinyoung fixed his own shirt and waited with a burning face for the final blow that Taegun had to offer before he left.  _

I’m just saying—be prepared. And maybe avoid having so much sex with people higher in the industry. Don’t mistake attractiveness for talent. You know? You see it happen all the time with the newly graduated theatre actors. Just--be realistic. Okay?

_ That had been the end of it. Jinyoung had slammed Taegun’s office door so hard the inset window rattled in the frame.  _

Fine,  _ Jinyoung said to himself, wiping an arm across a dry eye as he made his way back to his room.  _ I won’t mistake attention for love, either. 

  
  


** 

 

The cafe where he’s waiting for Yugyeom is quite busy. Suspiciously so, almost; if it wasn’t for the way that Yugyeom is actually very protective of his privacy in public, Jinyoung would think that the little brat was releasing his whereabouts on purpose just to bring in foot traffic. He laughs to himself where he’s sitting tucked away in his favorite corner. 

_ He’d sell me out and stick up for me in the same breath, I think.  _

The watery sunlight is struggling to warm the air from behind the veil of the clouds, not quite the gray color of rain, but close. Jinyoung takes a deep breath through his nose and listens to the vibrant buzzing of life in the coffee shop around him and closes his eyes. With Yugyeom not here yet and surrounded by strangers and fans, it gives him a little too much time to think.

It’s been a week since he last saw Jaebum, with his cheeks flushed red with sin and his lean body tense with shame. It’s been a week since Jinyoung stared him down in some lust fueled insanity in the studio, holding both of their heads under violently red tinted water as he worked himself up to completion, completely off script. And yet Jaebum, picky, uptight Jaebum—he never once stopped him. He never once called  _ Cut!  _ or sighed in a maybe-not-exaggerated annoyance when Jinyoung went off script. In the solitude of his corner he wonders if Jaebum had sensed, in some way, the impending disaster of Jinyoung’s sensuality. 

He wonders if they could have avoided it. And, in turn, he wonders if Jaebum had sensed it and yet let it happen the way the sky folds beneath a storm. If he was the antagonist or the antagonized. If, perhaps, they are both at once. 

It has also been a week since they’ve spoken—after Jinyoung wandered away from Jaebum’s trailer in a visible confusion, himself and Jackson were largely not needed on set. They won’t be filming the courtroom scenes until the next week, and effectively the main actors who are not part of the shooting schedule have been gifted with a two week break. At the rate things in his life are colliding with the ground and bursting into flames, he wonders if trying to fill the dead space of two weeks enough to not drown under the roaring ocean of his thoughts is going to be possible. He hopes so.

Jinyoung is not surprised by the lack of communication from Jaebum; the director had never tried to text him after their incident on set. He expected that. But, it would be naive (and intentionally obtuse) to say he isn’t, deep down, just a little hurt. There was not even the whisper of an attempt, no  _ Will you come to my trailer because I want to see you? _ Arguably the reality of this is better. They’ve lead each other on long enough, haven’t they?

But the truth hurts. Oh, the truth hurts. Jinyoung can feel that like a bone punched out of place. 

Taecyeon would call him naive. Yugyeom would call him crazy. His sisters would call him  _ hopeless but, the romantic kind, Jinyoungie, the kind  _ everybody _ loves _ . To have ever expected that the planet of ice Jaebum rules over with a closed fist, heart locked away like a miserable secret in the depths of it, would have ever welcomed him is just short of delusional. To think that the sparking of sexual tension between them for whatever reason that manifested in their arguments and alcohol laced kisses was anything but, is childish. Hopeless, but not romantic. Just hopeless.

Jinyoung keeps his eyes closed. Fractured light in nameless colors dance across the backs of his eyelids when he squeezes them tighter against the weak light of a sun that can’t warm the cold core of him.

_ Why do I feel this way about him? Why? Why do I feel this way— _

Just then, a not-so-graceful Yugyeom is bumping into the table and nearly dumping Jinyoung’s half full iced coffee into the lap of his jeans. His eyes spring open in surprise and Yugyeom laughs as he steadies the table before plopping down in the opposite chair with a heavy breath. 

His nose is pink at the tip; Jinyoung’s smile curls, genuinely, at the corners of his mouth when Yugyeom wiggles it like a bunny.

He pauses where he’d been hauling his hip bag into an empty chair next to him, letting it drop with a clang. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Jinyoung says. Yugyeom looks away to signal to the baristas he works with to make him a drink and then looks back with an eyebrow raised. Jinyoung finishes, “I’m just glad to see you.” 

Yugyeom makes a face. “Are you sick?”

It makes him laugh, a genuine one; after the silence of his miserable week alone trying to sort his feelings out with no success, it feels good to laugh. 

“No, I’m not sick, asshole.” He smiles. “I just missed you. We’ve both been busy lately.”

“You just texted me a couple days ago that you’ve been holed up in your trailer alone with nothing to do except having an existential crisis and that you needed plans every day for the next week and a half otherwise you were going to burn down your house.” 

It’s true. When Jinyoung realized his unbridled thoughts about the state of his and Jaebum’s... _ whatever  _ it is were starting to get threatening, he told Yugyeom he needed an out. Yugyeom’s only condition was that Jinyoung tell him, honestly, about what’s going on. 

_ Or isn’t,  _ he thinks, only a little bitterly. 

Jinyoung sighs. “Look—“

Yugyeom interrupts, though. He sets the coffee one of his coworkers brings over down on the table without taking a sip of it before crossing a leg over the other and planting his hands in his lap. 

“My only condition was that you told me what’s going on.”

“I know.” 

“So tell me,” he says gently. Yugyeom blinks mildly at him and Jinyoung’s heart squeezes painfully. 

_ Where do I even start? _

Jinyoung looks down at his lap, anxious fingers picking at the tattered, frayed edges of the holes in the knee of his jeans. 

“Where do I start?” he finally asks, out loud, because he really doesn’t know.  _ Is there even really a place to start?  _ The timeline of  _ whatever  _ is not definitive; jumbled, the utter up and down of a roller coaster silhouette. 

“Wherever you think you need to.” 

He laughs, but it’s bitter like the smell of roasting coffee. Jinyoung swallows before starting,

“I don’t—you know I’ve always had that stupid crush on him.” Jinyoung makes a face when he says  _ crush  _ like it’s a dirty word. “Like, fanboying over his movies, watching all his interviews, reading about him online. Whatever. We established this part already.”

Normally playful Yugyeom nods solemnly. “Yeah. And then you told me about how different he was in person than from what you were expecting, right? You said your crush on him died.” 

It’s such an uncomfortable word— _ crush.  _ Like he’s a teenager, discovering what it means to be attracted to boys all over again. The fumbling, miserable, adolescent energy inside him whenever he locked eyes with Jaebum in the beginning. And now that same fumbling, miserable, adolescent heartache because of, what exactly? They can’t reconcile their differences? Jinyoung doesn’t even know what their differences  _ are.  _ Because Jaebum’s a raging, insufferable asshole? Jinyoung has his part of the blame, too. So what—

“Hey,” Yugyeom says softly, leaning forward to wave a hand in Jinyoung’s face. Jinyoung blinks himself out of the spiral he’d been following and looks at Yugyeom across the table. “Talk it out, remember? Don’t disappear on me again.” 

_ Again.  _

“The thing with Taegun was different,” Jinyoung says. He shifts in the chair. “We were never together and I didn’t expect us to be. He was just—indifferent.”

“So you’re saying you expected you and Jaebum to end up together?” 

“I—“ Jinyoung falters, mouth closing with an audible click of the teeth. Had that been what he meant? Even subconsciously? He doesn’t think so. “No, because Taecyeon hyung always said that I should prepare myself for him not to like me. And it felt that way. It still feels that way.

“That night at the club—“ He pauses, taking a deep breath before admitting what happened, knowing Yugyeom will physically expand with a reaction. Jinyoung wipes his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans. “We argued, of course. All we do is argue. But we also kissed.” 

He’s right: Yugyeom’s chest expands with air that he sucks in quickly through his mouth; he holds it, though, not wanting to make a scene in the coffee shop.  _ “What?”  _

“We kissed. After we argued, I was going to just walk out on him but he pushed me against the door and we—we made out—“ 

“Hold on hold on hold on,” Yugyeom interrupts. “You kissed, and  _ he  _ initiated it?”

For lack of anything better to say, Jinyoung just nods.

The look on Yugyeom’s face is disbelief. “You guys made out with him making the first move and you still think he doesn’t like you?”

“Yugyeom, he was really drunk—“ 

“Hyung,” he says sharply, but not meanly. “I know you’re not stupid.” 

“I know that, but—“ 

“So why keep denying it?”

“What, that he likes me? You haven’t heard everything yet—!”

Yugyeom nearly jerks out of his chair. “I don’t need to! You—“

Just then, a shadow falls over their table. There’s the rattling of expensive sounding bracelets on a skinny wrist as an equally expensive white bag hits the table with a  _ thunk.  _ A familiar voice says, in its distinct cheeky purr,

“You guys are so obvious. You know that, right?” 

Jinyoung looks up in disbelief to see Bambam grinning at him before turning away to pull up an empty chair. Yugyeom shoots him a  _ what the hell is this?  _ look across the table but all Jinyoung can do is shrug his shoulders and send back a confused  _???  _ by way of raised eyebrows. 

“Um—“ Jinyoung isn’t sure what to say. “Hi, Bambam?” 

Hi, hyung.” He grins at them from behind the lenses of his neon yellow circle frames. “You know everyone in here is watching the two of you, right?”

That doesn’t surprise him. A quick glance over Bambam’s skinny shoulders shows him that, yes, a large majority of the patronage  _ is  _ watching them intently over the rims of their drinks, but that’s a given here, especially since Jinyoung is such a frequent visitor. There’s a sort of blanketed tension, though, as if they had been watching with bated breath while Jinyoung and Yugyeom’s pseudo argument arose in pitch and volume until someone erupted. 

Jinyoung sighs and sinks back into his chair a little, sliding down like he thinks it’ll hide him from the peering eyes. “You’re right. We were being a little too loud, I guess.”

At this, Yugyeom scoffs and takes a sip of his drink. He smacks his lips and says, “yeah, but you’re always in here, so are they surprised? It’s not even like it’s the first time we’ve argued in here.” 

“First time?” Bambam asks, looking over at Yugyeom with a cocked eyebrow. Jinyoung hopes that the two of them get through this interaction (as weird and as sudden as it is) without connecting over a mutual love of tormenting him. “How do you know each other?”

Yugyeom beams “I’m basically his brother” at the same time Jinyoung mutters “he’s a parasite”.

Bambam laughs. “Long time friends, huh? That must mean you like to tease Jinyoung hyung.” Jinyoung makes a face when Yugyeom perks up in his seat. “Who were you teasing him about just now?”

“Hold on a second—“ Jinyoung says, suddenly sitting up in his seat like he could physically stop them from having this conversation. “Who said it was about a person—“

“Remember when I said you were being obvious? I could hear you when I walked in.” Bambam sets his drink down and puts his hands under his chin to mock Jinyoung’s voice saying,  _ “what, that he likes me?  _ Pffft.” 

Yugyeom dissolves into laughter while Jinyoung indignantly crosses his arms over his chest and refrains from kicking them  _ both  _ in the shin. 

“Okay, smartass, first I’d like to know how you’d know I’d be here—“

Feigning hurt, Bambam pouts, “what, I can't come to a coffee shop on my day off?”

“Day off?” Jinyoung frowns. “Is no one at the studio?”

Bambam’s white hair flips side to side as he shakes his head. He pushes his glasses up onto the top of his head and says, “no. Jaebum hyung called it off today. Said he needed a break and he was sure everyone else needed a break, too.”

Jinyoung isn’t sure what to make of this. He blinks.

“That’s who you’re talking about, right?” he asks, but directs this question to Yugyeom, who nods enthusiastically. “I thought so. He’s been in such a bad mood since you haven’t been on set.”

_ This  _ makes him react.  _ “What?” _

Bambam sighs wistfully. “He’s so  _ restless.  _ He keeps checking his phone, missing all the cues, being super late to set and looking haggard.” He scoffs. “I suggested once that he come into wardrobe and I would give him some of his outfits that weren’t baggy khakis and a circus tent for a jacket and he almost bit my head off.” 

This makes Jinyoung feel so, so uneasy. He had complained, to himself, that Jaebum hadn’t tried to call or even text him after what happened, although in retrospect he’s not even sure what there is to say. But to know he’s been constantly checking his phone… there’s no way that has anything to do with him. That maybe Jaebum had been expecting Jinyoung to confront him first.

Uneasily, Jinyoung says, “I don’t… I don’t think that has anything to do with me, though.” 

Bambam throws him a look and, unfairly, Yugyeom does too. 

“Are you sure about that?”

Jinyoung swallows.  _ Not anymore.  _

“Yes.” 

Bambam half laughs, half scoffs. He takes a long drink of the coffee in his hand and watches Jinyoung with a raised eyebrow while he does. There’s inherently something challenging about it— _ you don’t know as much as you think you do.  _ That’s what that look says. It makes Jinyoung’s stomach hurt. 

“This is ridiculous,” Jinyoung finally says, making a noise in the back of his throat. They aren’t getting anywhere and the things he’d wanted to tell Yugyeom he doesn’t feel exactly comfortable saying in front of the stylist/PA. Bambam seems to have no problem opening his mouth; Jinyoung worries the corner of his nail between the rows of his straight teeth at the thought that Bambam would easily spill anything he heard around Jaebum. 

They already have their fair share of issues; they don’t need gossip and rumors to fuel more of them. Which is, as he knows quite well, a different beast all on its own.

“Stop that,” Bambam chastises, lightly smacking Jinyoung’s wrist with his fingers. The bracelets on his wrist jangle loudly in contrast to the quiet that has fallen over their small group in the wake of Jinyoung’s protest. “You have such nice hands and they need to stay that way until filming is over.” 

He pulls his hand away from his mouth but doesn’t say anything. Yugyeom still seems expectant, as though he’s waiting for Jinyoung to continue, but he casts a perfunctory glance in Bambam’s direction as if to say  _ I can't. He’s here. _

Bambam, of course, sees all of this. With an eye roll he drops back into his seat and sucks loudly on his coffee before saying:

“Look, I’m not dumb.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Jinyoung mutters irritably.

He waves this off, bracelets clacking. “I’ve been working on Jaebum hyung’s movies for a while now. I know him, and I know his patterns. Believe me when I tell you he’s never acted like this before.”

It’s just  _ frustrating  _ to him. “So what?” Jinyoung contests. “What does that have to do with me? He’s a testy guy. Really impatient and uptight about stuff. What does all this other shit have to do with  _ me?” _

“Talk about  _ testy,” _ Yugyeom mutters, and then whines when Jinyoung actually does kick him under the table.

“He just--” Bambam pauses and purses his lips like he’s trying to think of the best way to phrase whatever ridiculous thing Jinyoung assumes is going to come out of his mouth. He takes a sip of his coffee to fill the silence and then puts it down, squaring his shoulders. “It’s like--it’s different with you. Like I said, I’ve known him for a long time. I’ve seen the people he’s brought around. I’m sure you know he’s never been really serious about dating--”

Yugyeom chimes in, “I’m sure Jinyoung hyung knows, like, everything about him at this point. Before he was casted he was  _ obsessed  _ with Jaebum’s movies. Like, watched and read all of his interviews--”

“Yugyeom,” Jinyoung warns, eyes wide, fist balled in a threat; Yugyeom sticks his tongue out childishly but closes his mouth and leans back to listen.

Bambam grins at Yugyeom, clearly reveling in the new information. “He’s never serious. He’s a ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ type, if you know what I mean.”

Jinyoung suddenly feels very ill: maybe the feeling is jealousy, uneasiness at the thought of Jaebum being a casual player who sleeps around and doesn’t make connections because he just doesn’t want to. Something about the lack of loyalty and desire to settle down makes Jinyoung queasy despite his history of doing the same.

“I don’t think we need to talk about this anymore,” Jinyoung says, trying not to give away how he feels with his voice. He grips the arms of his chair and shifts like he’s going to stand up, but Bambam stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“Look. Whatever is going on between you, or whatever  _ isn’t,” _ he amends, rolling his eyes when Jinyoung makes a face, “I don’t care. You don’t have to tell me about whatever happened between you, although with the way the two of you are acting it’s not that hard to figure out. I don’t care, okay? In fact, I really like you, hyung, and I would be happy for you. But you have to just let me finish, okay?”

“It won’t change my mind,” Jinyoung says, but he sits back down.

At the same time, Yugyeom and Bambam ask, “about what?”

“About him. After this film is over, I’m done. I don’t want to work with him again.”

There’s a short moment of silence between the three of them that kind of reads like disbelief from their ends, but Jinyoung chooses to ignore that and just waits for Bambam to finish.

“I saw the way he looked at those people. He was looking at them, but he wasn’t really  _ looking.  _ You know? It was like he was just looking through them.”

Jinyoung knows that feeling quite well, actually. He recalls with an uncomfortable clarity the way it felt when the wind of Jaebum’s icy exterior blew through the center of him.

“But you... “ Bambam furrows his eyebrows and tilts his head. Jinyoung looks at the pieces of white hair framing his ears like bouncy commas around the temples of his sunglasses pushed up his head instead of at his face. “Sometimes, it feels like you’re the only person in the room that he  _ does  _ see.”

Jinyoung closes his eyes.

“And the funny thing is, hyung, it’s always when you’re looking away. It’s like he thinks that just because you aren’t looking, that no one else, is, either. But I see the way he looks at you, Jinyoung hyung.”

He can’t help it; his heart is splitting open like a rotted fruit and his voice wavers when he opens his eyes. “So what?”

“He  _ sees _ you.”

It’s too much. How can Jaebum be every kind of contradiction? Every exception to every rule? All Jinyoung gets is the icy stares, the jumbled emotions, the non definitive words with no real meaning,  _ will you come because I want to see you?   _ All he gets is the push back, the drunken kisses, the maze of locked doors. But then an outsider comes in and tries to tell him,  _ don’t you see? He’s  _ looking  _ at you. He  _ sees  _ you.  _ Like it’s supposed to mean something. Like it can erase the damage they both have already caused. Like they haven’t already drawn their lines in the sand and refused to compromise or come to a conclusion.

Overwhelmed, Jinyoung stands up from his seat so quickly that his knee hits the bottom of the table and the drinks on top rattle where they start to tip. Yugyeom yelps and pushes Bambam’s bag to his lap to keep it from getting dirtied if the liquid spills, but the two of them manage to stabilize the table while Jinyoung’s shaky hands try to pry the tangled strap of his bag from the back of his chair.

“I gotta go--”

Bambam’s voice, worried, begins to call out to him but gets interrupted: “Hyung--”

“Yah!” A familiar voice calls, and it turns his blood to ice. “Bam-ah, don’t you get enough of harassing the actors on set? You gotta follow them places, too?”

Bambam laughs; Jinyoung stays turned away from the sound of Mark’s voice and slowly tries to work the strap of his bag free like if he does it idly enough they won’t notice that he’s there. For all he knows, Mark is alone, or maybe with Jackson, but there’s a burning in the middle of his back that says the person he brought along isn’t the one with the big, brown eyes.

“Mark hyung! Don’t you get enough of harassing  _ me?”  _

“Maybe if you did things on time like I asked and didn’t need to be harrassed,” Mark shoots back, laughing, and there’s a jingling like Bambam’s bracelets as he slaps Mark’s arm. “Did you really find them here because of instagram, or did you ask?”

Jinyoung can feel the stare in his back burning hotter and hotter the longer he refuses to turn around; Mark and Bambam have engaged each other in a dialogue almost immediately that doesn’t require himself (or Yugyeom, really, but his nuisance of a pseudo brother has found a way to insert himself into it, anyway) and he wonders if the lack of reaction to anyone else means that he’s just imagining it. The strap of his bag finally comes free with a rough jerk that sends the chair legs scraping on the raw concrete floor and, hilariously in any other time, they all stop talking at once. Jinyoung catches his balance with his palm on the seat and takes a deep breath before standing up straight and turning to greet him.

“Hi, Mark hyung--” Jinyoung says, and then stops.

Jaebum is standing just behind him, black hair messy where it’s sticking out from beneath the cap turned backward on his head. The conversation resumes around them, but when their eyes meet it’s like they’re sucked into a vacuum: the noise fades, the room around them blurs. The world narrows down to the empty space between where Jinyoung stands with his bag hanging off his shoulder and where Jaebum stands, watching him intently in that way he does, hands balled to obvious fists in the pockets of his fitted jeans.

_ I see the way he looks at you, Jinyoung hyung. He  _ sees _ you. _

But there had been nothing--no attempt at contact after whatever it was that happened on set, their shared lust fueled fever dream. There was only the Jaebum specific radio silence.

No matter what Bambam had said, or what Youngjae or Mark or Yugyeom or Jackson had said. The one thing he shouldn’t have forgotten, he did, and it has only come back to break his heart just like it had the first time.

_ I’m just saying—be prepared. And maybe avoid having so much sex with people higher in the industry. Don’t mistake attractiveness for talent.  _ And, too, what he had promised to Taegun and himself:  _ Fine, I won’t mistake attention for love, either.   _

Jinyoung feels the shutters of his heart close. He takes a deep breath. 

“I’m gonna get going,” he says, and ignores the glances of Bambam and Yugyeom while simultaneously ignoring the confused look on Mark’s face while simultaneously ignoring the way Jaebum’s dark eyes on his face makes his heart thump in broken rhythm. 

“We just got here,” Mark complains. “And Youngjae is on his way right now--”

The heat of Jaebum’s gaze is making him feel a little dizzy.  _ It’s so hard to forget when you’re looking at me like that.  _

“Sorry, I have to go meet my manager--”

Yugyeom perks up at this, though his eyebrows are pushed together in confusion. “Really? I thought you said Taecyeon hyung went on vacation for a couple days while you were on break--”

Jinyoung throws daggers at Yugyeom with his eyes, who quiets immediately. The lie is blatant, now, laid out on the table and being examined like a lab experiment. 

“Um,” he hums, not sure what to say next. Mark is looking at him like he’s grown three heads and Jinyoung wishes everyone could be this oblivious. He nods and steps around the back of Bambam’s chair, aware that he’s going to have to walk by Jaebum to get to the door, but relieved when he sees that the spacious coffee shop gives him plenty of room to skirt around. “Anyway--”

“Where the hell are you going, hyung?” Yugyeom whines. Jinyoung ignores him and just barely clears the back of Bambam’s chair with his hip in his haste to leave. “We were supposed to go to the movies later--!”

“I’ll call you,” he mumbles, and turns his face away as he steps passed Mark and goes to blow Jaebum off completely. 

He can’t help but feel the eyes of everyone in the coffee shop on them now, too, like some real life melodrama unfolding before their eyes. He knows it’s just because he’s famous, and that they all very likely recognize Jaebum, too, since it would be hard not to, and the combination of two very famous people who are the center of some very interesting rumors in the same room while tension strings itself up like a tightwire has everyone on the edge of their seats. Jinyoung wishes he could tell them all to fuck off and mind their own business, but the price of fame is hefty and he knows it.

“Jinyoung--” Mark says, half turning, but Jinyoung is looking away, attempting to flee.

His heart is strumming like an offbeat instrument as he passes by Jaebum; despite the arm’s length of empty space between them Jinyoung can smell his cologne, the way he had smelled it so closely when Jaebum shoved him up against a door and kissed him like he was drowning. Time slows to a swelling, a bursting, the tattered tempo of tension as he steps past Jaebum and tries to take a breath.

But Jaebum is not satisfied with this, it seems. He catches Jinyoung’s wrist when his arm swings back and he grips it, hard, and pulls.

Startled, Jinyoung spins on his heel and yanks, but Jaebum’s fingers are warm and strong on the exposed skin of his wrist. His pulse drums against the pad of Jaebum’s fingertips.

“Let go,” Jinyoung says between his teeth. He’s all too aware that now,  _ everyone  _ is watching. The soft pop music playing over the speakers is suddenly the loudest thing in the room above their breathing; even the baristas have stopped their machines, captivated by the drama unfolding right in front of their eyes.

Jaebum’s voice is low, deep, that black coffee silk devoid of feeling. “Don’t leave.”

“I have somewhere to be,” Jinyoung insists, and tries to twist his wrist out of Jaebum’s grasp but it’s a little too tight. “Let go, directornim. People are watching.”

“I don’t care,” Jaebum says, and there’s the first spark of emotion in it: anger. Whatever Jaebum wants will turn into an argument before Jinyoung can make it out the door. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“You know what.”

“Let _go,”_ Jinyoung says through his teeth. He flexes the muscle in his forearm and balls his fist tighter like he’s gearing up to physically shove him. “There’s already rumors about us fucking all over the internet, you have to know that. You do, don’t you? Do you want to give them more reasons to talk about us? _Let_ _go._ ” 

“I do know, Jinyoung,” Jaebum says, teeth equally gritted, but he obeys and lets go of Jinyoung’s wrist. “And I don’t fucking  _ care.  _ We need to talk.”

“You had your chance,” he spits, and he’s surprised when Jaebum’s face changes. And it comes again, that superimposed image of a sweating, drunk Jaebum, doused in red and green flickering light, a complicated pot of emotion stewing in the depths of his eyes. The ghost of Taegun reminds him not to mistake attention for affection and yet his resolve breaks, folded like a house of cards. Because despite the truth of it in his heart, that he has done just what he had promised himself and Taegun that he wouldn’t do, there is the part of him that can’t forget the vulnerableness he has seen displayed on Jaebum’s face in the moments after they kissed; the untold story of his heart in the tears that had dried on Jinyoung’s face. Despite the way his own heart warns him not to go on, another part of himself thinks that maybe if he gives Jaebum another chance, the truth of him will be uncovered.

“But fine--” Jinyoung turns away. “If you feel like you have to say something, you’re going to do it outside while I wait for someone to pick me up.”

Without waiting for an answer, Jinyoung keeps walking, pushing open the door without looking back.

  
  
  


At first, Jaebum doesn’t follow. 

He’s not surprised--maybe Jinyoung had come off too aggressive, or straight up mean, and it scared him off of talking about what happened between them like it was actually going to matter.  _ Have we ever actually resolved anything by talking?  _ he thinks bitterly, and makes a face as he heads off the sidewalk. Jinyoung finds a spot to sit in the alley, not too far from the mouth of it that his driver won’t see him, but far enough away that people might not spare him a second glance if they’re hurrying. He crouches down to rest his bottom against the backs of his ankles; one arm wrapped around his legs, he rests the elbow of the other on his knees and puts his chin in his hand to text his driver for a ride.

_ Hyungie, come pick me up. _

_ Where? _

Jinyoung smiles. His driver-bodyguard-exasperated hyung has just gotten back from mandatory military service; they haven’t met each other yet since he went home to see his parents, first, but he came back to work when Taecyeon went out of town to take over in the meantime.

_ Gyeomie’s cafe. You remember where, right?  _

_ :) Yea, I remember. Be there soon. _

His driver sends another right after:

_ Hungry? Been a while since I’ve seen you. Let’s go eat _

_ Sure, hyungie _

_ :)  _

Jinyoung smiles: even if his romantic relationships aren’t stable, at least his meaningful relationships are. He sighs and thinks about his sister’s (at the time, unsolicited) advice when he was pining after Taegun:  _ just date your friends, Nyoungie. At least you know they like you. _

_ Noona,  _ he thinks despairingly,  _ if only it were that easy.  _

Just then, a shadow falls across the top of him, blocking out the watery light from the wintry sun. Jinyoung already knows it’s Jaebum--if it wasn’t for the expensive looking Nikes Jinyoung is making eye contact with, he’d be able to tell just by virtue of the energy radiating off of him like a nuclear reactor.

With a sigh Jinyoung stands up and brushes imaginary dirt off the back of his pants before leaning back against the cold brick of the building. His eyes skirt along the broad length of Jaebum’s shoulders; he notices that the denim jacket he’s wearing over a cream-colored hoodie is stretched tight with how hard his hands are pushing against the pockets where he’s hidden them.

When Jaebum doesn’t say anything right away, just blinks quietly at him, Jinyoung makes a noise in his throat.

“Whatever you wanted to say, directornim, I think now is the time.”

Prompted, Jaebum takes a deep breath, but like always his face is mysteriously clear of any emotion that might give him away. It seems the only time Jinyoung ever gets something genuine out of him is when they’re fighting or kissing or hurting each other’s feelings.

“About what happened--” he stops, hesitating. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and worries it for a distracting moment before he drops it and wets both and continues, “about what happened in the studio--you--you can’t go off script like that, Jinyoung.”

It stings. He won’t lie. It’s not like he’d been expecting an apology, no, or a confession. But it stings, nonetheless, to know that  _ this  _ is what Jaebum had wanted to say. 

“You couldn’t have texted me this?” Jinyoung asks roughly, and laughs humorlessly when Jaebum flushes. “You had to make a scene in my friend’s coffee shop because you needed to tell me I can’t go off script days after that scene finished shooting?”

“It’s just--” he starts, but Jinyoung cuts him off. 

“This is why we have phones, directornim.” He adjusts his bag on his shoulder and watches Jaebum’s face as it flushes deeper and the carefully cultivated mask of his he seems to slip on whenever Jinyoung is around starts to crumble, just a little. “Better yet, you could have stopped me while the scene was filming--”

They both know he wouldn’t have done that. That’s not the point, though, and Jaebum tries to say as much, but Jinyoung raises his voice over him again:

“So instead why don’t you just send me a message if you have something to say, we don’t need to talk to each other outside of set--”

Something about this makes Jaebum’s facade crack completely. Jinyoung watches it fall apart in real time and his mouth closes with a quiet click of his teeth when Jaebum removes a hand from his pocket to hit a closed fist against the brick at Jinyoung’s shoulder and bark over him:

“Why do you always do this?”

Jinyoung opens his mouth to reply, but Jaebum’s rough voice barrels over him:

“No. Stop. God, it drives me nuts. Why do you always do this, huh? You always invite the conversation but when it’s my turn to talk, you don’t let me get a word in. Why is what you have to say more important than what I have to say? Huh? Why is it more important for you to get your feelings out--”

The utter waterfall of Jaebum’s distressed words falling from his mouth like this punches the air out of Jinyoung’s lungs. 

“You--” Jaebum struggles with finishing whatever that sentence was going to be, and after a moment he hits his fist against the brick again in frustration. “That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Sounds like it is,” Jinyoung says, but not as a joke. Jaebum ignores this.

He takes a deep breath and Jinyoung wishes that, more than anything, that he could freeze this moment in time. That, of all the times he has seen Jaebum look vulnerable, or look anything unlike the cold statue that he’s built himself up to be, this could be the time he sees for the rest of forever. There is something…  _ alive  _ about the look on his face, now, even more so than the time just before and just after they kissed against the door. He had taken his hat off before coming outside and the silky strands of his black hair blow in the small wind that kicks up and blows through the space between them. The curve of his jaw sharpens, softens, sharpens as he grits his teeth. The skin stretched over his carved out cheeks is pink and the color of his eyes are dark, dark, dark like the corridors of his heart. Something about his frustration has vitalized him and brought him to life in a way Jinyoung wishes he could bottle up and drink.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you,  but you can’t go off script like that. Okay? Just--we have to resubmit for a new, higher rating now because of--because of--” he stutters, reminiscent of the awkward teen he’d seemed to be while his hand rocked in his lap.

Jinyoung wants to make it hurt. For Jaebum or maybe he’s just so used to making himself hurt that he can’t resist. He holds Jaebum’s eyes and says, “because I came on camera? Say it. Say that’s why.” 

“Yes, that’s why.”

_ “Say  _ it,” Jinyoung says. Suddenly it feels like he’s holding a gun to both their heads and his chest tightens, desperate for Jaebum to just acknowledge this in some way, even so small as this. “Say it.” 

Jaebum swallows. “We have to change the rating because you came on camera.”

His heart drums; the flush on Jaebum’s cheeks has spread to his jaw, quickly turning the column of his neck a dusky pink beneath the hoodie.

“If you didn’t want to change the rating, directornim,” Jinyoung challenges; and, for this next part, he takes a breath before he closes his eyes and takes a blind leap: “why didn’t you stop me?”

Silence. Their eyes hold in a heavy stare as the powerline of desire running through both of their bodies thrashes to life. Jaebum’s fist turns to a palm on the wall and the edge of Jinyoung’s shoulder brushes the width of his chest when he leans against it. 

From the outside it looks intimate; two lovers swapping secrets hidden just inside an alleyway, the lover in denim leaned in just enough to look like he’s telling the lover crowded against the brick an intimate secret. Their chests don’t touch but they heave, just ever so slightly, out of breath like they had run for some distance. The lover with the cat’s eyes closes them like the other had said something sweet.

The reality is that between them it is a battlefield: their chests heave against the tension that buries them, and Jaebum’s eyes close in something like shame. Jinyoung’s shutter in something like heartache.

Jinyoung’s voice is a whisper. “Just tell me honestly, hyungnim. Just tell me. Why didn’t you stop me?”

Jaebum’s eyes stay closed and his face pinches like the answer hurts. He doesn’t say anything for a long, drawn out moment, like he’s gathering the strength. Moments pass in a pregnant silence that deepens the cracks in Jinyoung’s heart with every beat. Finally, he inhales shakily and says,

“Because I didn’t want to.”

It doesn’t make Jinyoung’s heart skip a beat like it may have in a different version of this universe, one where they hadn’t spent so much of their time hurting each other, or digging their heels in to resist what had become inevitable. In fact, it squeezes, painfully, because Jaebum says it like it was some great sin. As if it cost some great part of himself to admit something so small.  _ Because I didn’t want to.  _

And Jinyoung can’t help it. No matter how much the answer will hurt, no matter what it is, he has to know. He has Jaebum like this now, so vulnerable away from the prying eyes of everyone else, and Jinyoung wonders fleetingly if this is the common denominator: is he only like this hidden away from the world? Is it only possible to see into the shadowed hallways of his broken heart when there’s no one else around to see the pain of existing on his face? Jinyoung so badly wants to ask,  _ what are you so afraid of? What happened to you to make you this way? _

But those words don’t come. Jaebum’s eyes don’t open, either, for once choosing not to stare a black hole into the center of Jinyoung that sucks in everything around him to try and fill the impossible void that it creates. The edges of it grow as Jaebum’s breath comes in pants, pained, like an animal struck by a carefully aimed arrow.

“Is it because you want me?”

Jaebum doesn’t answer. A car rushes by on the street and Jinyoung feels the way every nerve ending inside of him screams when his hand comes to rest on Jaebum’s neck. Slick with sweat, the muscle tenses under Jinyoung’s palm and doesn’t rest. Jinyoung’s voice, the softest whisper, quivers with the force of trees in the eye of a tropical storm.

“Please, hyung,” he begs tenderly, dropping the formality, heart bruising when Jaebum starts to shake. “Just tell me if you want me.”

_ Jinyoung-ah, you don’t know how bad I wanted this.  _

“I--”

Jinyoung’s other hand fists tightly in the material of Jaebum’s hoodie at his stomach. Jaebum’s breath hitches. Jinyoung is no longer sure why he wants the answer. The moment is slipping, and when it’s gone, it will be gone forever, buried in the graveyard of all their moments before this. 

Without warning, Jaebum’s other arm comes up and wraps around Jinyoung’s neck, palm cradling the back of his head, and he pulls Jinyoung toward him hard enough that it hurts the bridge of Jinyoung’s nose when it connects with Jaebum’s jaw. He can feel the way Jaebum full-body shakes like a terrified dog. Despite the feeling in his own heart, it makes him feel guilty for asking this, when Jaebum had seemed to need to say something else--as though Jinyoung had lined him up naked and afraid before the firing squad.

“Forget it,” Jinyoung mumbles against his neck, lips brushing the skin as he gets both hands on Jaebum’s flat stomach and pushes lightly. “I’m sorry, hyungnim, forget it, you don’t need to answer, just let go--”

“I don’t want to,” Jaebum mumbles, and Jinyoung stops struggling against him, letting his hands rest on the tense muscles of his hips. “I don’t want to. Jinyoung-ah, I didn’t want to stop you, I--” Jaebum takes in a deep, shuddering breath, almost like he’s crying but his face is still dry for now. “Every time I get close like this you push me away and I--I don’t--” he struggles for the words that he buries against the skin of Jinyoung’s temple where his face is pressed against it.

The trembling in Jaebum’s voice scares him more than anything--his fingers tighten in Jaebum’s sweatshirt and he tries to untangle himself, gently pushing, but Jaebum tightens his grip and makes an awful, guttural noise of agony in his chest that hits Jinyoung like a knife to the gut.

“Hyungnim,” he gasps, “let’s not--let’s talk about this some other time, okay? You should go home and rest, I--” 

But Jaebum doesn’t seem to be listening: his breath hitches and he says through his teeth,

“I want you, Jinyoung-ah, but I--I can’t--”

Jinyoung’s heart stops. 

_ “Jinyoung!”  _

The sudden voice, loud and deep, calling for him from the street startles both of them so badly that they spring apart. Jinyoung turns his head for the source of the shout and sees his driver standing on the step of the driver’s seat, waving at him across the glossy black hood of his car. He’s so dazed that he almost doesn’t recognize him.

“Come on!” he shouts, flapping his hands and grinning so hard that his eyes fold into crescent moons. 

The echo of Jaebum’s wavering voice drowns out everything. Jinyoung is trying to formulate a response but all he can hear is Jaebum saying,

_ I want you, Jinyoung-ah, but I--I can’t-- _

“Jinyoung?” his driver says, looking confused when Jinyoung is just staring in his direction and not answering. He’s vaguely aware of Jaebum also looking in the direction of his driver and then staring at the side of his head, but the world has stopped making sense.

His driver shouts, “are you okay? Do I need to call someone--?”

“Hyung,” he manages, although his voice cracks before he can clear his throat and make it stronger. The words come automatically and he forgets saying them immediately: “I’m coming! Wait there!”

The door slams shut after his driver throws him a thumbs up and disappears, leaving them to face each other again.

The moment, as he knew that it would, has slipped through their fingers like so much water. Jaebum, when Jinyoung looks back at him, has one again slipped on the mask; the only difference is that, this time, Jinyoung can clearly see the cracks because he knows where to look. Jaebum is going to pretend that this didn’t happen, he’s sure, but Jinyoung knows that they can never come back from it. For worse or for worse, he is sure. Whatever happened between them just now, they can never come back from it.

“Jaebum--”

“He’s waiting for you,” he says, but his voice is not harsh like he imagined that it would be. In fact, it’s soft, the way that one would cushion a blow.

“Wait, we need to talk about this--” 

“No, we don’t,” Jaebum says, in a startling mirror of himself, and the phone in the pocket of his pants begins to ring. “I think we’ve both said what we needed to say.”

Jinyoung’s heart drops. “Jaebum--”

He slides to answer the call after pulling his phone from his pocket; he can see from the picture that it’s Mark. Jaebum’s face is still wiped clean but his hands are shaking and his eyes are red, the only indication that it has left him reeling, too. Jaebum nods in the direction of the black car idling on the curb.

“Go. He’s waiting for you.”

And then he turns away, walking down the alley in the opposite direction from the entrance of it, voice a steady monotone as he greets Mark with  _ yeah, I’m outside, I was just talking to Jinyoung.  _ Jinyoung stands and watches his back as he gets further and further away, just barely catching the way Jaebum says  _ yeah everything’s fine we just talked a little bit, nothing serious, you can tell his friend his driver picked him up--  _ before the sound fades and Jaebum disappears around the corner, out of sight.

Stunned, Jinyoung stands frozen for another long moment before the honking of the horn from his impatient driver turns him on a heel. He practically sleep walks to the car, dodging people on the sidewalk and opening the door on autopilot. His driver greets him when he pulls himself up into the seat and they fall into an easy conversation that Jinyoung barely hears as his mind reels.

_ I want you, Jinyoung-ah, but I--I can’t-- _

Over, and over, and over. A broken record of indescribable pain, both administered and received. 

_ I want you, Jinyoung-ah, but I--I can’t-- _

Jinyoung closes his eyes and rests his head against the window. A sad song comes on the radio. His chest aches.

_ I think we’ve both said what we needed to say. _

  
  


**

  
_ Taegun hyung,  _ he thinks miserably to himself, sleepless and alone in his bed,  _ I did it again.  _


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and i felt the weight within  
> reveal the bigger mess  
> that you can't fix  
>   
> [i swear, i swear i'll go](https://youtu.be/FHSfyypZtag?t=145)

 

Unsurprisingly, Jaebum doesn’t attempt to contact him after that. 

Jinyoung doesn’t try either, though--at this point he isn’t even sure what he would say. The mess they’ve made is so big, so out of control that Jinyoung feels as though he’s lost sight of what he really wanted to get out of it. He isn’t even really sure he got what he wanted out of their strange conversation in the alleyway; he  _ had _ gotten some part of Jaebum to split like a poorly stitched together wound, a half-baked confession shaken out of him as the man who’d been so cold to him since the day they met practically cried into his hair.  _ I want you, Jinyoung-ah, but I can’t.  _

Can’t  _ what?  _

He’d never gotten an answer. And, as he’d predicted, when his driver interrupted, the moment itself, had died; Jaebum had once again become the controlled person he’s always seemed to be, and Jinyoung knew that, regardless of the fact that the moment in the alley changed everything, it had seemed to change nothing. They would both go back to set the next week and act like nothing happened. 

But it did, and the fundamental truth of this is that it happened to them, and Jinyoung doesn’t know what to do with it. The moment weighs on him more and more every day, a constant weight, bowing his back more and more, a modern day Atlas. 

The weekend before they are to go back to set to film the scenes in the courtroom, Jinyoung invites Yugyeom over to his apartment to watch movies and eat snacks and generally forget about it (although Yugyeom acknowledged that Jinyoung is hardly the type to let things go and Jinyoung hit him squarely in the stomach with a well-aimed elbow). He arrives with a backpack full of different types of popcorn, some questionable flavors snuck in as if Jinyoung wouldn’t notice, and two paper carriers of coffee in each hand.

“Why did you bring so much coffee?” Jinyoung asks, eyes wide, but he opens the door all the way to let him in. The amount of keychains and pins on Yugyeom’s backpack coupled with the popcorn and ice in the coffees rattling around as he dances his way to the kitchen make him sound like some sort of traveling nomad. 

He sets them down on the dark wood of Jinyoung’s breakfast bar in the kitchen and turns to him as he sheds his backpack which, by the looks of it, is suspiciously more heavy than it should be. 

“Aren’t we going to stay up all night and watch movies?” Yugyeom scoffs at him like he’s only got a single brain cell. “What better way to do that than drink a shit load of coffee?” 

“If you think I’m going to pull an all-nighter to watch B action films with you, you’re wrong,” Jinyoung replies, but he shuts the door and comes over to inspect the contents of Yugyeom’s backpack anyway. He ruffles through it as Yugyeom puts the coffees in the fridge and frowns at all the clothes he brought. “Yah, what is this? Are you moving in or something? Why’d you bring so many  _ clothes?”  _

The mischievous idiot grins at him over his shoulder, head in the fridge. “Did I say all-nighter? Sorry, I meant all-weekender.” 

Jinyoung gasps in alarm. “What? I did  _ not  _ permit an all weekend stay. Are you crazy? I still have work to do!” 

At this, Yugyeom shuts the fridge door a little harder than necessary and stands up with his hands on his hips indignantly. “What, like brood? I’m not seriously going to let you mope in your apartment all weekend by yourself. Remember how you said that if you didn’t have things to do you were going to burn this place to the ground?” 

“I wasn’t  _ serious--”  _ Jinyoung grumbles, but, Yugyeom has a point. He had initially been a little shocked, but it’s not like Yugyeom hasn’t spent extended periods of time at his house before. And he’s right--even the few hours before bed every night that he was alone after being out and about all day felt like agonizing years, too much silence and too much time to think about what wasn’t and would never be. 

“I’m fully aware you weren’t going to actually commit arson,” Yugyeom says with an eyeroll, but he softens into a smile when he drops his elbows to the counter and puts his face in his hands. “But I’m here to protect the safety of your neighbors, regardless.” 

Jinyoung makes a face, lest Yugyeom figure out that this actually touches him quite deeply; if Yugyeom had decided to make plans with some of his other friends this weekend despite Jinyoung’s desperate plea for entertainment to keep the thoughts of Jaebum at bay, he would have understood. And yet he had still chosen Jinyoung over everything and he feels that, just maybe, he doesn’t  _ quite  _ deserve it.

Yugyeom, seeming to sense that Jinyoung’s thoughts are straying somewhere dark, stands up with a smile and motions for Jinyoung to toss him a bag of popcorn from his bag.

“C’mon, hyung. Let’s watch some movies.” 

  
  
  
  


 

Hours pass like this: the two of them leaned together on the couch, eating slightly-burnt popcorn and watching movies so bad that the only way they can finish them is to talk over the majority of it. Yugyeom makes Jinyoung laugh so hard that he cries, tears streaming down his face, coughing when a popcorn kernel gets sucked into his throat and Yugyeom has to pound on his back while they just laugh, laugh, laugh. 

The sun goes down and spills darkness into Jinyoung’s living room. Only illuminated by the television, Jinyoung realizes that, for the past few hours, he hadn’t thought about Jaebum at all; could it be a sign that he could move on from this? That, regardless of what happened just a few days ago, he could really wake up on Monday and face the music like nothing ever happened? Yugyeom leans against him, harder, body going limp like he’s tired. 

“Thanks for spending so much time with me this last week and a half, Gyeomie,” Jinyoung says, nudging him with an elbow. Yugyeom makes a noise in the back of his throat and just leans into him harder, radiating body heat. Jinyoung smiles privately. 

“Mm. You’re welcome, hyung,” he murmurs, and lets the side of his head drop to rest against Jinyoung’s. His voice rumbles through Jinyoung’s temple when he says, “but you know, I did say that my company came with a price.”

“Yeah, you did say that.” He pauses. “What do you want now?”

He doesn’t move or look over. “You never finished telling me about what happened with Jaebum. That day in the coffee shop, you never really told me everything that happened. And you still haven’t told me what he said to you when you guys went to talk outside.”

His company comes with a price, indeed. Perhaps Yugyeom had somehow realized that Jinyoung was thinking about how he could move on from his back and forth with Jaebum so easily and wanted to challenge it directly, because he knows that it is not true. 

Jinyoung sighs heavily. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I didn’t.”

The movie, some terrible American action movie that neither of them have really been paying attention to, throws wildly patterned splotches of fiery light across their faces as Yugyeom leans off of him and turns a little to rest his arm against the back of the couch and his face in his hand. Jinyoung, suddenly feeling nervous, fiddles with his fingers where they’re shoved between his knees. He swallows.

“I guess I--” he stops, closes his mouth, and then tries again. “I just… I’m not really sure what’s going on. I’m not sure that  _ anything  _ is going on. It’s so hard to explain.”

“Then don’t try to explain it. Just tell me what happened.”

Maybe he can do that. Just explain the things that have happened without searching them so fruitlessly for a meaning that he’s yet to find. Jinyoung nods and tries again: 

“I told you, he was so weird when I first met him. Just--super cold, not friendly, at least, not with us. After awhile I saw how he was with his assistant, and with some of the PAs and people he was close to, and it was so strange that it seemed directly aimed at me sometimes. Everyone always told me, ‘it’s not personal. That’s just how he is’. But after awhile, how could I keep believing that? When he did so many things that targeted me specifically? The arguments we got into, how cold he was to me, I thought he hated me. Like genuinely hated me, and that any moment he was going to let me go. Even Jackson said he’s never seen him act like that toward an actor on his set, but--if he wanted me gone, he would have made that happen. But he didn’t. In fact, one of our first--I don’t know, moments, I guess?--was when he took me into his trailer and I thought he was going to fire me but he didn’t. He was surprised to hear that I thought that. And it’s just--he’s been so hot, cold, hot, cold. Cold again.

“And then--all these weird fights started happening because he was, I don’t know, jealous, I guess? About the fact that I was hooking up with Jackson.” Jinyoung sighs and folds himself back into the overstuffed couch cushion, eyes unfocused on the TV where a car burns up in a parking lot. “But he framed it like he was angry because I was an actor and I was going to fuck up his reputation, or whatever. Like I wasn’t putting my own reputation on the line.” he scoffs. “But it was so--it was always so  _ charged--  _ there was always this energy around him when he said it, and that’s why I figured he was jealous. He was just always so  _ angry  _ about it. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. Once, before we really kissed, we almost kissed on set. He got mad at me because I kept fucking up my lines and sent everyone home but me. I don’t know what got into his head so badly that day, but--I thought he was finally going to kiss me. That all this weird tension that had been building between us was going to explode and we were going to, I don’t know, I guess my train of thought assumed that he was going to kiss me and we weren’t going to stop and we were going to hook up on the hotel bed on set.”

Jinyoung laughs; it’s an empty sound, though, and Yugyeom frowns.

“But he backed out. Or I did. We both did. And then, I told you, we kissed. And yeah, he initiated it, but--Yugyeom, you don’t  _ understand. I  _ don’t understand. We made out in a private room and he kissed me like he was going to die, you know? And he cried.”

This makes Yugyeom’s sleepy eyes widen in alarm. They go so big that the whites are visible and Jinyoung almost laughs at the look on his face, but he doesn’t quite feel like laughing.

“He  _ cried?  _ Like, what, when he left?”

Jinyoung shakes his head and looks down at his pants, picking at the inseam. “No, like when we were kissing, I think. I didn’t notice at first because we were both really drunk, and we were both mad because we were fighting right before. But--when I made him leave before me, and after awhile I left, too, I was standing on the curb and I felt the dried tears on my face. But they weren’t from me. And while we were kissing, he--” Jinyoung swallows roughly. “He said, ‘you don’t know how bad I wanted this’. Like, he’d been harboring this dark secret for so long and it was finally coming out.”

Yugyeom whistles through his teeth. “Wow.”

“Yeah. And then--it just got more weird. It made less sense than it ever had. He made me come to his trailer like he wanted to talk about it. Did I ever show you the text he sent me that morning, when I said that we didn’t have anything to talk about?” 

When Yugyeom shakes his head and sits up, Jinyoung slides his phone from his front pocket and bites his lip as he unlocks it. He scrolls through their text thread with a thumping heart; it’s not like it takes long, as Jaebum seems to be allergic to communication. He finds the message and holds the phone out for Yugyeom to read.

“Oh, ew,” Yugyeom says, scrolling a bit lower, but seeing nothing of interest and gently pushing Jinyoung’s phone back toward him. “That’s so--what did he say after that?” 

“When I got to his trailer, the first thing he said to me was ‘why aren’t you wearing a jacket’, like he’s my fucking dad, or something. But he--he tried to ask me if I was okay, and maybe I panicked, or maybe I just thought it was weird because it was so  _ unlike  _ him to ask me if I was okay, that I just started a fight. He told me that I didn’t get to tell him how to feel and so I asked him, bluntly, that he needed to decide how he felt about me.”

Yugyeom gasps, theatrically, but honestly, too. “What did he say?” 

“He told me that we should just forget about it. So I left. And then--the scene came up where Jackson and I have sex--yah, don’t make that face, you know there’s a sex scene in this movie. Anyway, I was with Jackson in his trailer and Jaebum came to get us. We sort of argued outside? I stormed off pretty quickly, and then Youngjae brought up the fact that Jaebum talks about me to him, and just, god, Yugyeom--” he doubles over and grabs handfuls of his own hair. “Nothing makes sense anymore.”

“So what happened in the alleyway?” Yugyeom asks, gently. He puts a comforting hand on Jinyoung’s back between his shoulder blades until Jinyoung scrubs his face and sits back up with a sigh.

“When Jackson and I were filming the sex scene, something happened. I think. I--” he feels his face redden and is glad for the shadowy darkness of the living room. “I wasn’t paying attention to Jackson at some point anymore.  I was--I was watching Jaebum as we were filming it, and he was watching me. He was--I could see him touching himself over his pants--”

“Oh my god,” Yugyeom whines, slapping Jinyoung’s leg. “First of all, too much information, but second of all, why didn’t you lead in with this?! He like, totally got off to you!” 

He cringes and feels his face get hotter. “Don’t say it like that.”

Yugyeom scoffs. “It’s  _ true!”  _

It is. Jinyoung knows that. That’s  _ exactly  _ what happened, is it not? The culmination of their tension, exploding like that, in some thing that neither of them could control. The train going off the tracks that neither of them could stop, even if they wanted to. 

“Whatever. Anyway, I don’t know. We didn’t talk after. He didn’t text me. I’m--I’m surprised, and I’m not. He texted me after we kissed, but he didn’t text me or try to talk to me after this, and I don’t know whether I should be surprised or not. I guess in the end, I’m not surprised. Actually, the first time I saw him since that happened was when Mark brought him to the coffee shop.”

“Oh, is that why he was acting so weird?”

Jinyoung’s heart thumps. “What do you mean?” 

“Wow, that actually makes so much sense.” Yugyeom sniffles and readjusts. “When he and Mark showed up, you were still fucking around with your bag strap because it was caught on the chair, and you didn’t notice them. He didn’t say anything, and Mark and Bambam had already started talking, and I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just watched him instead. And he was looking at you like you were literally the only person in the room--”

Jinyoung closes his eyes, hearing Bambam’s voice in his head.  _ Sometimes, it feels like you’re the only person in the room that he  _ does _ see. _

“Like, he didn’t say anything to anyone, he didn’t wave at Bambam or even acknowledge that he was there. And he had this look on his face.” Yugyeom sighs. “I’m not really sure if I can describe it. I don’t know. But he had this look, like, he wanted you to notice him _so_ _bad_. Like he wanted you to look up and see him and say something to him. You know what I mean? Like he was just burning a hole in your back.”

He knows. He could feel it. It felt like all the other times Jaebum had looked at him so hard it formed a black hole inside him.

“And then you tried to leave without saying anything, and seriously, hyung, it was exactly like a drama. You said the thing about the rumors and he said he didn’t care and like, half the cafe gasped.” 

He just closes his eyes. Jinyoung wishes that they didn’t hear that.

“You left first, and he just stood there. The entire cafe was just dead silent, hyung. It really felt like we were on set or something, you could have heard a pin drop. He just stood there with his hands balled up at his sides staring at where you’d gone out of the door and I still can’t explain the look on his face--” Yugyeom bites both his lips like he’s trying, anyway. “It was like--it was like he was--like, he stood there, just staring at the door and not following you, this look on his face like you’d just taken his heart with him. You know what I mean?”

No. He doesn’t. He’s never seen that look on Jaebum’s face and Yugyeom, an outsider, who doesn’t know Jaebum and has never had to experience his tumultuous existence the way that Jinyoung has, couldn’t have read his expression correctly. Not if that’s how he read it. 

“But then he followed. So what did he say to you in the alley?” 

Suddenly, Jinyoung is tired. So very, very tired. 

“Just that--we almost fought again, but it didn’t quite get that far. I texted Kwon hyung to come pick me up since he’s finally back from the military and taking over for Taecyeon hyung while he’s on vacation. I didn’t think Jaebum was going to follow me so I just told him to get me right away. 

“And when he came outside, finally, he--he did what he always tried to do, which was frame whatever he actually wanted to say like it was just because he’s worried about this movie, like it’s the only thing he cares about.” Jinyoung shrugs. “Maybe it is. And I admit, it hurt. More than it should have, and I told him that we don’t need to talk to each other off set, that he can just text me if he has something to say, but then he got frustrated and started talking over me. He tried to switch back to making it about the movie but--I knew that wasn’t it. It couldn’t be. 

“So I did what I do best and I goaded it out of him. I stared him down and made him admit to me why he was pissed about ‘changing the rating’ and why he didn’t stop me when he could have. And I really just wanted an answer, but--” Jinyoung stops and takes a deep breath; this is the part that he has been replaying in his mind, seeing over and over and over in his mind for days, a repeated feedback loop of the noise Jaebum had made just before he broke. Jinyoung picks at the skin around his fingernails and says, softly, “I made him cry. He grabbed me and held me close to him and he cried a little and shook like he was going to come apart, but he admitted that he wanted me. He said, ‘I want you, Jinyoung-ah, but I can’t--’ and then Kwon hyung showed up and called to me. It scared the both of us and I knew that the moment was over.”

That’s all. That’s all there is, isn’t it? This convoluted, awful, ugly mess. Jinyoung, who had promised himself to never confuse attention for love, who had made the unforgivable mistake of taking lust as affection. Jinyoung, who had made the unforgivable mistake of thinking that Im Jaebum could be capable of anything but this, dealing out heartache like cards. That there could ever be something between them.

“I think you’re wrong,” Yugyeom says softly, after some time in the silence punctuated only by the background music of the credits that roll on the unwatched TV. “I think you’ve convinced yourself that he’s incapable of feeling, but, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like he feels  _ something.”  _

“Even if that’s the case, Yugyeom,” Jinyoung replies, heart heavy and bruised, “I still don’t  _ know _ him.”

“What do you mean?”

Jinyoung wipes at his dry eyes. “Even after all this time, after everything that’s happened--I still don’t know anything about him. I just don’t know him, he’s never let me in. And I can’t--I can’t have feelings for someone that I don’t know.”

The air is thick, and heavy; the credit music ends and the darkness widens as the screen goes dark. Yugyeom puts a hand on Jinyoung’s hair and says, too softly to be fair,

“Oh, hyung,” like he’s not quite convinced.

But whether Yugyeom is convinced or not, it is just the truth of it: he can’t fall in love with someone that he doesn’t know.

And the harsher truth is that Jinyoung doesn’t really know Im Jaebum at all.

  
  


**

 

The rest of the weekend passes in a haze. Yugyeom and Jinyoung never really revist the mess that Jinyoung had spilled out for him, the both of them content with where they’d left it. Jinyoung had given up the necessary information that Yugyeom’s prolonged company had desired and, in turn, Jinyoung had bloodlet some of the negativity he’s been harboring for weeks. It didn’t resolve anything and it didn’t answer any of the questions that Jinyoung has; in fact, if anything, it only gave him  _ more,  _ but he lets Yugyeom tackle him off the couch to get more popcorn and coffee and tries to put it behind him.

As such, coffee and popcorn abound, Jinyoung wakes up in his bed on Monday morning with Yugyeom’s large frame half sprawled over him feeling a little ill. 

“Urgh,” he groans, skin hot and sticky where Yugyeom’s bare chest is half over his own. The sun is barely coming up over the mountains outside the frosty window but Jinyoung still has to get up and shower before calling Kwon to drive him to set downtown. 

He finds that he sort of misses Taecyeon blowing up his phone in the mornings but according to his instagram posts, he’s having a blast jumping over things for photos, and Jinyoung doesn’t want to disturb his vacation quite yet. He’ll be back in a week, anyway, and according to the shooting schedule that Jaebum had sent them sometime last night in the late hours when his phone had been buried in the blankets and Yugyeom passed out on him, they only have about a month left of shooting. Jinyoung blinks at Jaebum’s name on his phone screen and then at the ceiling when he lets his hand drop, phone loose in his fingers.

_ Only a couple more weeks. We’re almost done. Then you can get away from this. _

“What are you thinking about?” Yugyeom says, suddenly, startling Jinyoung into flinching and dropping his phone to the hardwood with a clatter. He looks over to see Yugyeom watching him with sleepy brown eyes.

“Get off me,” Jinyoung whines, pushing at him, their skin sticking together with heat despite the cold on the other side of the walls. Yugyeom rolls off him and keeps rolling until he hits the edge of the bed and drops off his side with a  _ thump.  _ “How long were you awake and watching me, creep?”

Yugyeom’s head pops up, the only thing visible from where he’s still on the floor, and Jinyoung laughs at the sight of his disembodied head with his hair sticking up everywhere. He makes an indignant face.

_ “Me?  _ Me, the creep? You’re the one who’s just been staring at the ceiling without blinking for ten minutes. Looks like you were planning on how to kill me or somethin’.”

Jinyoung, despite feeling totally exhausted and kind of drained (and slightly nauseous from the amount of popcorn and coffee he consumed over the weekend), laughs. “Shut up. Are you going to go home now?”

“Yeah,” the younger says, getting to his feet and grabbing a clean shirt out of his backpack where it’s sitting in the armchair in the corner of Jinyoung’s bedroom. He slips it on over his head and scrubs his hair while blinking sleep out of his eyes. “You have to leave soon, don’t you?”

“Kind of,” Jinyoung checks his watch and sees that it’s still really early, but the earlier he gets to set the earlier they can all start if everyone else is there, too. “I’ve got a little bit but I want to shower and hang out for a while.”

“Is Kwon hyung coming to get you?” 

“Yup,” Jinyoung says, and dodges the shirt Yugyeom tosses at him.

“Are you two ever going to hook up?” he asks, playfully, putting his things back into his backpack as Jinyoung sits up in bed and pulls on the shirt Yugyeom had tossed him even though he’s just going to take it back off before he showers. 

Jinyoung cocks his head. “Who?” 

“You and Kwon hyung.”

“What? No!” he protests, face reddening; Yugyeom glances at him with an eyebrow raised and keeps packing up while giving Jinyoung the chance to keep going. “I mean, he’s _attractive--”_

“Isn’t that why you hired him in the first place?”

With a noise against his teeth, Jinyoung throws one of his pillows at Yugyeom in faked annoyance. “No, it’s  _ not, _ ” he insists, although they both know it’s a little true. As an established actor who has worked with Lee Minho, it’s not like he couldn’t afford it, and if he could afford to surround himself with attractive men, then why wouldn’t he? “It didn’t  _ hurt.”  _

“So you’d hook up with him?”

Jinyoung leans back on his arms, considering it. “Wouldn’t that be a bad idea? He works for me.”

Yugyeom barks a laugh and slings his stuffed backpack over his shoulder. “You work for Jaebum and that didn’t seem to stop either of you.”

It was meant in obvious jest, but he can’t help the way that the mention of it makes his heart plummet uncomfortably. Jinyoung’s smile slips and he bites his lip as he looks down at his legs buried underneath the blanket still, idle fingers finding a loose thread to fiddle with as he tries to think of something to say.

“Sorry,” Yugyeom says guiltily. “I was just kidding.”

“I know. You’re not wrong.”

The room is quiet for a moment, the lightheartedness of the morning broken. Yugyeom shifts on his feet and clears his throat while Jinyoung continues to look at the blanket and wishes that it wasn’t like this. 

Yugyeom’s voice is soft when he asks, “you have to see him today, right?” 

Jinyoung nods. “Yeah. But I also get to see Jackson, and there’s going to be a ton of extras on set since we’re filming in the courtroom. It won’t be a big deal, and I doubt he’s going to say anything.” Jinyoung shrugs, trying to seem casual. “We haven’t talked in like a week, so I think it’ll be okay.”

“Do you think so?”

“Whatever was going on between us, Gyeom, it’s over,” he says softly, eyes unfocused and picturing the scene in the alley when Jaebum had stepped away and shut himself off again, that feeling that transpired like something irreplaceable smashing against the ground. “He won’t even say anything to me beyond just directing.” 

“What did he send you last night?” Yugyeom nods at Jinyoung’s phone where it’s still laying on the floor. “I heard it go off after we were already in bed and falling asleep.”

It makes Jinyoung laugh a little. “How’d you know it was him?”

“When I woke up I saw you staring at your phone like it had just broken up with you, so I looked and saw his name on the screen and that he’d sent you a message, but I couldn’t see it since it was just a picture.”

So he had seen that. Little jerk. Jinyoung looks up at him. “Just the shooting schedule. We’ll be done next month. Wrap party is on the last day, and then we don’t have to see each other until the premiere, and then we never have to see each other again.”

“Do you  _ want  _ to see him again?”

Jinyoung looks away again. “I won’t.” 

“That isn’t what I asked.”

With a sigh, Jinyoung kicks off the blankets and stands up, running a hand through his messy hair. “Look, let’s just let it go, okay? We talked about it Friday night, and I told you basically everything. I don’t know him. I can’t have feelings for him if I don’t know him. You know?” 

“That’s bullshit,” Yugyeom says, but doesn’t argue further. He lets Jinyoung plant two hands in his back and start pushing him from the room toward the front door. “But whatever helps, hyung.”

He pulls open the door and hangs onto it, Yugyeom half in and half out, looking at him as he leans his back on the frame. They don’t say anything for a moment and Jinyoung isn’t sure that they need to: the conversation, as far as Jinyoung is concerned, is over. If Jaebum won’t ever open up or even just apologize for the things that he’s done, then the door is closed. After the premiere, they can both just forget it ever happened, just like he wants.

“We’re almost done, and then we can forget about it,” Jinyoung says, slightly swinging the door back and forth. Yugyeom stares him down for a moment before sighing and pushing himself up to head home.

“Okay, hyung. Whatever helps.”

Jinyoung smiles at him and goes to shut the door, but just before he can, Yugyeom catches it and forces it open enough to stick his head back in with a mischievous grin splitting his face.

“But at the very least, consider what I said.”

He cocks an eyebrow as his phone starts to ring in the next room. “Which is?” 

“Hook up with Kwon hyung when Taecyeon hyung comes back. You deserve to have a little fun.”

Ears turning red, Jinyoung pushes Yugyeom back out of the door with a palm covering his face and slams the door shut. As much as the idea embarasses him, he’s not entirely sure that Yugyeom is  _ wrong;  _ Kwon  _ is  _ handsome, and it’s not like he hasn’t expressed even the tiniest bit of interest in the past, but there’s something so inherently... _ mortifying  _ about the prospect of asking his driver on a date. Maybe less than that, if Yugyeom is to be listened to. But he has already tried once to use sex as a distraction and it didn’t work, not even with Wang Jackson, and so Jinyoung wonders as he makes his way back to his room to grab his ringing phone if trying with his handsome driver would even be worth it.

When he picks up his phone, there’s a message on the screen, the name of the sender in horrible bold.

**Im Jaebum-ssi  
** _ Everyone’s already here, Jinyoung-ah, come ASAP _

It feels unfair, somehow. That even after everything, he would still call Jinyoung familiarly even though neither of them deserve it. That Jinyoung’s stomach would still flip and turn watery because of it.

With a sigh, he throws his phone to the rumpled sheets of his bed and closes himself up in the bathroom to shower, trying to prepare for a day he already wants to end.

  
  


** 

  
  


The courthouse downtown is alive and bustling with activity by the time Kwon drops Jinyoung off on the curb; they navigated through vans and trucks and equipment spilling out onto the roadway, even having to go through a security checkpoint down the street where they have the main  intersections blocked off from public traffic. 

Kwon leans over the wheel as they pull up to the courthouse’s curb, craning his neck to look up at the looming building that throws the street in shadow. “Jesus, it’s so much bigger than I remember.”

Jinyoung unbuckles his seatbelt and laughs. “Been here before, hyung?”

“Yeah, I had to come to my brother’s hearing once, couple years ago.” he looks over at Jinyoung and grins. “Before I came to work for you, though, so don’t worry.”

“If it was your brother’s hearing, why would I be worried?” Jinyoung jokes, and pushes Kwon playfully on the shoulder. His driver laughs and catches his wrist, pulling him closer to put him in a gentle headlock that Jinyoung barely tries to get out of. “Hey! Watch the hair!”

“What, they don’t have someone on set to fix it for you?” Kwon laughs, and tightens his arm enough to make Jinyoung slap his forearm playfully.

Despite being happy that Kwon is finally finished with his service, the action makes him miss Taecyeon. He wonders, briefly, what Taecyeon will have to say about everything that has happened before, and he wonders if Taecyeon would recommend taking Yugyeom’s advice about Kwon. But he tries to push it aside; Jinyoung just yelps and closes his eyes as Kwon brings him down further, his face almost in Kwon’s stomach. Still laughing, Jinyoung punches him in the leg hard enough to make Kwon let go. “Yah, hyung!”

The gentle arm around his neck slides away, denim dragging on the warm skin of his neck, and Jinyoung is sure that he’s blushing when he sits back up. Kwon goes to make another joke, glancing outside and then away, but quickly does a double take that makes his mouth close. 

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Uh, your director is standing outside,” he murmurs, and points out the windshield to where Jaebum is standing on the bottom stair of the courthouse entrance and watching them through the windshield with his arms folded. “He doesn’t look too happy. You’re not late, are you?”

_ I don’t think that’s why he looks that way,  _ a voice in his head says, sounding suspiciously like Yugyeom. Jinyoung checks his watch and sees that, no, they’re not late, so he reassures Kwon with a pat on the thigh and looks away from Jaebum who continues to watch.

“Nah, he’s just a control freak. It’s fine, hyung,” he says, and declines to tack on that the control freak thing only puts it lightly. Jinyoung smiles at him and wishes desperately that his heart would do something when Kwon smiles back at him. That he could feel it, that he wouldn’t be so consumed by the way that a single look from Jaebum could wash everything else away. He tries to keep his smile honest. “Told you not to mess up the hair.”

“Oh, shut up. Still need me to come get you later?” 

As he gathers up his bag, he nods. He opens the door and gets half out of it, “yeah.” He hesitates before sliding all the way out of the tall SUV to the ground and turns around to look at him. “Hey, are you doing anything tonight?”

“Me? Just taking you home, then I was going to get dinner and go home myself. Why, what’s up?”

Jinyoung licks his lips nervously; he isn’t sure if Jaebum is still standing outside and watching and he tries not to care as he adjusts the strap of his bag higher up on his shoulder and takes a deep breath. 

“Want to get dinner together? You could even come to my house and hang out if you don’t want to be alone--”

“Really?” Kwon looks surprised. “I mean, yeah, I would love to, but--that wouldn’t cause rumors would it?” Jinyoung furrows his eyebrows and Kwon bites his lip. “I just mean--I know you’re famous and people seeing me come out of your apartment might cause rumors, I don’t want--”

Jinyoung smiles at him. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I understand.”

“It’s not that, I just don’t want the rumors to affect  _ you.  _ They won’t, right?”

Helplessly, Jinyoung glances at the place where Jaebum has been standing outside the courthouse, dressed in tight jeans and layered hoodie underneath a denim jacket. Their eyes meet, briefly, before Jaebum just seems to sigh and turn away to disappear inside.

The stone in Jinyoung’s chest hardens again, and he forces a smile at Kwon as he slips all the way from the car and prepares to shut the door.

“Trust me, the rumors don’t phase me," he lies, and easily. "I’ll call you when I need to get picked up, okay?”

Kwon smiles back at him and nods; he gives Jinyoung a friendly wave as Jinyoung jogs across the sidewalk to the entrance and slips inside, dodging all the crew members hanging around and  _ definitely  _ ignoring the extras watching him with careful eyes. 

Gracefully, the inside of the courthouse is warm, and Jinyoung’s sneakers squeak on the impossibly shining marble floor as he searches the crowds of people for someone that he recognizes. Jaebum hadn’t ever told them what courtroom number they’d actually be filming in; it’s a real building, with real cases going on in some of the courtrooms even as Jinyoung passes them, nodding shortly to the officers guarding closed doors. Employees in their suits and dresses linger in the main hall as Jinyoung makes his way through until he sees the equipment scattered around open doors at the very back of the building. 

Jackson sees him first. He calls to him, getting up on the lip of one of the pillars lining each side of the main hall and cupping his hands around his mouth. “Jinyoung!” he shouts, and it echoes in the grand empty space above their heads.

Sunlight filters in from the glass ceiling stories above them, shining in Jinyoung’s eyes, and he covers his face until he sees Jackson and can raise his arm to wave at him. Finally seeming to realize that the handsome guy in street clothes with a bag on his shoulder isn’t just some guy but  _ Park Jinyoung,  _ that’s when they start to make it more difficult for him. People stop him and compliment him; they thank him for coming, for some reason, as if he had picked this court building himself, but he just offers polite bows and quick handshakes before making a mad dash to where Jackson is waiting for him at the pillar by the doors.

“Jeez, I thought you were never going to make it over here,” he says, pulling Jinyoung into a hug before he can even say anything. Jinyoung closes his eyes and falls into it, letting himself be comforted for the smallest of moments. Jackson leans back to look at him. “How was your break?”

_ You don’t want to know.  _ “It was good,” he lies, and he can feel Mark’s eyes on him where he’s watching them within earshot. Jinyoung doesn’t look over. “How about yours?”

“It was good,” Jackson says with a smirk, and looks at Mark, who turns a little red and looks away. Jinyoung sees all of this and laughs. 

“Hey! You two!” a familiar voice calls to them from the right, in the shadow of the giant bronze statue of a king that holds its place at the end of the building like a throne room instead of a courthouse. Bambam looks at them and cocks an eyebrow with a hip popped and a hand planted in a look that screams  _ let's get on with it, time wasters.  _ “Get over here, will you? I have a wardrobe to put together! And you--!” he points at Jinyoung accusingly even as Jackson links their arms and they start to walk over to him together. “What the hell did you do to your hair? You couldn’t brush it after you got out of the shower?”

“It’s not my fault,” he whines, frantically trying to brush it back down. “I told my driver not to mess it up, but he just said you’d fix it anyway--”

Bambam’s eyebrow shoots up even further as he grabs Jinyoung’s bag and hands it off to an assistant, shoving Jackson toward someone else so he can get to work on poking and prodding at Jinyoung’s clothes. “Interesting. Your driver was playing with your hair?” 

He makes a face at this and lets Bambam strip off his coat. “It’s not like that,” he says with a groan. He allows himself to be spun around in a circle as Bambam peels the heavy coat off of him, and he’s startled into stumbling a little when he makes eye contact with Jaebum standing by the open door of the courtroom they’re filming in. 

Catching him by the wrist to steady him, Bambam must notice that they’re looking at each other. He says from over Jinyoung’s shoulder as he pulls the rest of his coat loose,

“See what I mean? Hundreds of people in here, but to him, you’re the only person in the room.”

Heart thumping, Jinyoung spins around hastily to face him again. “Stop. We haven’t even spoken since--”

“The coffee shop? Yeah, I know.”

Jinyoung blinks as Bambam steps away to grab the shirt of the suit his character is wearing in the scene they’re filming. Quizzically he asks, “how do you know that?”

“I was there, idiot.” 

Normally Jinyoung might have a complaint about Bambam of all people calling him an idiot, but he lets it slide with a noise against his teeth. “Not that, I obviously knew you were there. I meant how did you know we hadn’t spoken since then?” 

“Ahh,” Bambam hums. He declines to answer right away holding a roll of tailor’s tape in between his teeth, tugging at Jinyoung’s t-shirt in request to remove it so he can slide into the dress shirt being held out to him. When he takes it back out and starts tugging at the shirt, he continues, “Youngjae told me. We had dinner last night, and when I picked him up, I picked him up from Jaebum hyung’s house. Asked me to give him my perspective on the whole thing and what I might think  _ you  _ think, since he doesn’t know you well enough to ask.

Jinyoung swallows, feeling slightly seasick. He’s not exactly comfortable with their stupid feud, rollercoaster, whatever it is being broadcasted amongst the crew members close to Jaebum, but he figures that they’re his friends, too, and that it’s not really his place to say that he’s not allowed to tell them. But it still feels weird--having it scrutinized, the topic of friendly conversation, like himself and Jaebum are game pieces and not people. He understands, quite inherently, that with fame came the price of pieces of his private life becoming a commodity to be bought and sold and talked about, but it doesn’t make it feel any less weird or violating. He’s not mad, per se; they are Jaebum’s friends, and friends talk. He’s not mad about that. Jinyoung isn’t even really mad that Youngjae asked Bambam about it--he’s just looking for the other perspective to gain more insight on Jaebum’s behalf, he’s sure. What feels weird is that he seems to be the odd man out in his own life.  _ That  _ he doesn’t like. 

After a long silence of Bambam watching his face while his gears turn and getting him dressed, Jinyoung swallows again to clear his throat and asks, “and what did you tell him?”

“Do you want my honest answer, or the one that will make you less upset, considering that you have to go in there and face him in less than ten minutes?” 

“Honesty,” Jinyoung replies without hesitation. He’s so tired of things not being honest, of cards being played too close to the chest. He just needs something real, even if it hurts. “I just want the honesty. Please.” 

Bambam sighs, letting Jinyoung slip into the suit pants before handing him a belt and watching him thread it through the loops quietly. He crosses his arms and says, 

“I told him that I think that you two have a lot of unresolved issues. I think that you have no idea who Jaebum hyung really is--”

“You can say that again,” Jinyoung mutters, cinching the belt tight around his hips. Bambam continues as though he hadn’t spoken,

“And I think that Jaebum hyung has problems letting people in. I think hyung is stuck in his past and won’t let people get close to him--not just you, but  _ anyone.  _ He’s had the same close friends for years and years, Mark has been his assistant as long as I’ve known him, and despite me being the wardrobe consultant on all his films, I’ve just barely broken the shell of him. He’s very private, Jinyoung hyung.”

Jinyoung scrubs his face tiredly. “Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.”

“But,” Bambam continues, motioning to a makeup artist to bring him some brushes and powder so he can work on Jinyoung’s face while he talks. “I also told Youngjae that I see the way he looks at you.”

He groans, squinting against the bristles of the brush poking his cheeks. “Not this again.”

“Hey, you asked,” Bambam says, poking him in the stomach. “I told Youngjae that I see the way he looks at you like you’re the only person that he really sees. That, out of all the people in a room, it’s you he’s always looking for. And you know what Youngjae said, hyung?” 

The makeup brush disappears and Bambam’s voice softens. His heart lurches and he opens his eyes with it beating weakly in his throat as Bambam hands him a prop lanyard to slip over his neck; his handsome face is kind, soft, a gentle smile in the corners.

“What did he say?”

“He agreed.” 

There’s something to be said about the person the closest to Jaebum agreeing with Bambam’s sentiment, and he desperately wants to know what it is; Bambam might have told him, but at the same moment there’s a high pitched whistling from the doors of the courtroom that has everyone spinning on their heel to see Jaebum standing in the doorway. 

He is, of course, looking at Jinyoung. But, in the way that is so strictly Jaebum, he makes it seem like he’s addressing the room. 

“Time, everybody. Let’s get to our places inside.” 

And, much like he had outside, he seems to sigh and turns away to disappear between the doors without looking back.

Bambam, in that scarily omniscient way he seems to have, slaps Jinyoung roughly on the back across the shoulders from behind. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Jinyoung sighs.

  
  
  
  


Unlike all their other scenes so far, the room is huge and crowded with random extras that Jinyoung has never seen before. They’re all whispering to each other in a low roar as the rest of the camera and audio crews trickle in and find their places; the half-circle windows lining the right wall shines bright light into Jinyoung’s eyes and that coupled with the studio lights and the hundreds of pairs of eyes on him at any given him is starting to make him sweat. 

Jackson sees him coming up the aisle splitting the audience section in half and stands up where he’s lounging at the defense table. He’s dressed in a suit, too, beautifully pressed and a gorgeous tan color that looks unfairly good against the darker tan on his skin. When Jinyoung opens the small gate partitioning the bar and steps up to the table, Jackson makes him twirl and gives a low whistle. 

“Look at you, all dressed up. Is this for me?” 

Jinyoung laughs, still feeling a bit nervous about all the strange people in the room and Jaebum being in here, somewhere, but he tries not to think about it too much. “Of course. Who else would it be for?”

Jackson makes a face like he’s going to say  _ exactly  _ who he thinks it would be for, but one faked out slap makes him throw his hands up and reconsider.

“Okay, okay, I won’t say it.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says with a smile, and Jinyoung would be concerned that everyone in his life is suddenly very flippant about the way  _ whatever  _ he and Jaebum had (have? He guesses it’s still hard to say) fell apart in an alley next to a coffee shop, but he brushes it off in favor of greeting the other actors they’ll be mostly working with today. 

Jinyoung, despite being sort of nervous about being back to work with Jaebum, is actually quite excited for this scene: it’s his favorite kind, one that includes a lot of shouting and a lot of emotion out of Jinyoung and with the way his life has been going for the past couple of weeks, he thinks he could easily do this in one take. It won’t happen that way, he’s sure, but that well he draws out of when he needs to be upset is dangerously close to overflowing. 

The room settles into a hush when the heavy wooden doors at the back close with a dull, echoing  _ thud.  _ Jinyoung and Jackson both turn to see Jaebum making his own way up the aisle, looking at the packed green carpet instead of at either of them. He hops the partition instead of opening it which makes Jinyoung want to roll his eyes--Jaebum isn’t the type of person to do things for the sake of impressing people, but it’s obnoxious nonetheless. He walks by the both of them without looking up and heads directly to the director’s chair that’s been set up next to the jury box, sort of out of the way, but still able to see everything and from up close, too. He sits heavily in it and sighs.

He raises his voice and when he speaks, Jinyoung is almost shocked. It’s been a week since he’d heard it; it seems irrational but it feels like he’d almost forgotten what it sounded like. The difficult heart in his chest starts to beat harder as Jaebum addresses the room and, strangely, doesn’t look at him.

“Alright, this is the first day of shooting in this courtroom. I would like this to go smoothly as possible, as we only have this courtroom for two days, and it’s a long scene we have to shoot. We should be able to get through half today, and half tomorrow with short breaks in between. Places, people!” He claps his hands once, the sound a sharp  _ pop _ that echoes just slightly. He waits a moment for the silence to settle as people adjust in their seats and fix their clothes before he cups his hands around his mouth. “Action!”

Jinyoung’s heart kicks into overdrive. The anxiety is still there, buried under the skin like a side effect, but he manages to push it away as the cameras start to roll and the actors around him fill up the room with their words. He disappears into the place inside his head where he always tries to go, peering downward into the well that is dangerously full; the watery reflection of himself on the top of it ripples and warps as his heart continues to falter in his chest.

Even without looking, he knows Jaebum is watching him. He just  _ knows.  _ It is no longer the matter that he had felt in the club that very first night, no longer a wonder if he’s just spacing out and happened to land on Jinyoung while he did. Jaebum is looking at him, and it makes his insides ache like splitting apart. 

So when the first  _ Cut!  _ Comes from Jaebum’s direction in the middle of someone else’s lines, he should be surprised. But he closes his eyes because, in a way, he isn’t. 

“Hey, Park Jinyoung-ssi,” Jaebum calls, and Jinyoung just opens his eyes and blinks up at him. 

_ So this is going to be our first interaction after whatever happened to us in the alley, huh?  _ He thinks bitterly, watching Jaebum as the rest of the room watches the both of them when Jaebum doesn’t follow up right away. Jinyoung remains still in his chair behind the long, dark wood of the prosecution’s table and holds his eyes.  _ Is pretending that nothing happened going as well for you as it’s going for me?  _

Jaebum’s face twitches; Jinyoung isn’t sure what look was about to overcome it. “Be present. Your facial expression in the background is still important.”

He so badly wants to make a remark: if they were back on set, alone with the crew like they usually were, maybe he would have. But there are so many variables to this equation with so many strange people in the room, people with phones and eyes and brains capable of remembering whatever unfolds between them here and capable of talking about it on the internet. Jaebum had said in the cafe that he had seen the rumors about them online but he didn’t care--he never asked if  _ Jinyoung _ cared. And Jinyoung  _ cares _ . 

He just nods. He looks away back at the glossy surface of the table and holds his breath as the actors reset a couple lines back.

Jaebum doesn’t interrupt again for a while, carefully watching them all as they perform this delicate and intricate dance. Jinyoung’s time for lines finally arrives and he stands up, quickly, hands balled to fists at his sides in an anger that isn’t quite forced.

“‘That’s not true’,” Jinyoung’s character says, and he lets his voice waver in the way a little brother on the verge might let his voice waver. He turns to Jackson, sitting by his side at the table where he’s standing. “‘Are you going to let--’”

“Cut,” Jaebum calls, and his voice is so empty, so much like the way it had been when Jinyoung first ran lines to him at table reads.   
  
He doesn’t want to get angry. Jinyoung tries  _ not  _ to get angry. He knows that this is a part of the process, that this is how Jaebum operates, but it hasn’t been like this in so long. Jinyoung hopes that anyone in the room that knows the both of them understands that although they think it’s not personal, it  _ is _ . He can feel it in the way he looks Jaebum in the eyes where he stands behind the table and Jaebum watches him with his arms folded, nearly shadowed in his chair.

“Angrier,” Jaebum instructs. The room full of extras seems to hold its breath collectively: Jinyoung is sure that part of the rumors floating around the internet aren’t just about what their (non-existent) sex life is like, but about the way they circle each other like rabid dogs gearing up for a fight. “I want it angrier.”

If Jinyoung was in any position to fight, he’d fight it. The script says that he says this almost tearfully, aware that the cop on the stand for killing his character’s brother is trying to manipulate the court, but Jaebum seems to be testing him for something, and Jinyoung refuses to bite. He didn’t want to talk it out in the alley, fine, but Jinyoung won’t let Jaebum goad him into a reaction, despite feeling that tingly sort of anger tightening his chest.

So Jinyoung just nods, again, looking away as everyone resets. “Action!” 

They start again a few lines back. Jinyoung can feel the heat radiating off Jackson at his side and nearly misses his line trying to find comfort in it, but he thinks the delayed reaction that comes out sort of clumsy as his voice breaks out of his throat in anger actually helps his case. He gets through the line without another interruption from Jaebum, who is doing what he always does, and just watching Jinyoung with all the feeling of a stone.

“Cut,” Jaebum calls, and everyone’s heads turn to him in surprise. “Again.”

This time, Jinyoung can’t help it. “What?”

“I want you to do it again. More emotional this time. Less angry.”

_ Don’t bite. Don’t bite. Don’t bite. _

Jinyoung takes a deep breath. “Directornim, you  _ told _ me to do it that way.”

Something in Jaebum’s face changes when he says  _ directornim.  _ He just shrugs. “I liked it better the other way. Do it again. Reset!” 

As everyone starts to reset, Jackson grabs his wrist and pulls him down a little to whisper quietly to him.

“Stop.”

Jinyoung’s eyes widen. “What?”

“Stop. Don’t argue with him like this.” Jackson’s eyes are wide with concern, eyebrows furrowed. Jinyoung feels a hot stab of betrayal and yanks his wrist from Jackson’s grip; he can feel the heavy stare of the people in the audience section mere feet away from them on the other side of the bar but doesn’t look over.

“Are you kidding me? You see what he’s doing, don’t you?”

“He’s just--you know he’s like this, Jinyoung. He’s always done this, even on our own set. This is no different--” 

Jinyoung scoffs loud enough to be heard, and several people in the jury box look over at them. “Whose side are you on?” he hisses. “You’re right, it’s  _ not _ different, and that’s the problem. Only now he’s doing this shit to me in front of hundreds of random people--”

“That’s my point,” Jackson says between his teeth. Jinyoung would think he was angry but he actually just sounds desperate to get his point across. “There are so many random people here watching, Jinyoung, you think these people aren’t going to go home and talk about what happens here later? You think anything that happens between the two of you is going to stay in this room? You know how much rumors spread, Jinyoung--”

“I don’t care! I’m sick of getting treated like this, Jackson. I’m sick of it. You think people aren’t going to go home and talk about how he talks to me and how I just lay down and let him? Huh? You think people won’t gossip about that?” Jackson goes a little pale and Jinyoung’s triumphance lasts less than a second. “I--”

“Action!” 

They get through it a second time, thankfully, with no interruption. Jaebum must have seen the little interaction between the two of them between takes, because Jinyoung watches as Jaebum rotates between watching him and watching Jackson even when their characters aren’t speaking. His face is, as always, that stony mask, but if Jinyoung looks hard enough he can still see the places he had cracked it that day in the alley, and he wonders just what it’s going to take to break it to pieces completely.

Hours pass. The scenes come together slowly, small breaks given for people to stand up and stretch as PAs bring around water to those who ask for it. The breaks end and the shooting resumes, seemingly going well; Jinyoung thinks they may all even get out of this alive and on time with how little interruptions come from Jaebum’s direction. But then Jinyoung’s emotional monologue comes and the tide changes quickly, chopping waters to a storm.

The interruptions come over and over. And over. And over. And  _ over. _

It feels like every five minutes Jaebum has to stop him, although as Jinyoung’s patience starts to wear thinner and thinner he thinks that Jaebum is just doing it on purpose. Nothing about his monologue is going terribly; in fact, the anger is making it better, he’s sure, and that seems to be Jaebum’s favorite thing to do: bully him into doing the scene with the kind of emotion only Jaebum seems to be getting out of him. 

With every interruption the courtroom at large grows more and more tensely silent as if they’re all waiting for an outburst. Jinyoung holds out for as long as he can--he remembers Yugyeom’s advice that if he’s going to quit, to quit for himself, and to not let Jaebum force him out, and so he tries to hold. But the interruptions come more frequently, with a sharper tongue, and less direction on the heels of it. It’s like their first couple weeks all over again: Jinyoung just some fresh-faced rookie with no experience and a picky director with little regard for the feelings of his actors. The tension in the room rises and rises until it’s palpable, heavy on every0ne’s shoulders as their circling quickens. Jinyoung can feel the melting point of his anger steadily approaching and he wonders just how much longer he can really keep himself from shattering apart. 

“‘There’s proof, I have it right here--’” Jinyoung shakes the papers in his hand at the actor sitting in the judge’s seat, teeth gritted and his heart thundering in his chest. Sweat drips down the sides of his face to his neck, gathering on the collar of his white shirt under his suit. “‘He--’”

“Cut!” Jaebum shouts over him, and the room is quiet. “Did Lee Minho directornim just get lucky with you, Park Jinyoung-ssi?”

Finally. Finally the dam breaks.

All the rage he’s pent up since day one. All the anger, the hurt, the confusion. Every emotion Jinyoung has been harboring beneath his feelings for Im Jaebum and every unspoken word he never got to say in the wake of all their fights, their kiss, their moment on set comes rushing out of the well like a biblical flood. Everything he’s been repressing comes hitting the surface at a thousand miles an hour and he sees Jaebum’s eyes widen like he knows that the chord has finally struck and then splintered apart in a million pieces.

He can’t take it anymore. Jaebum has been jerking him back and forth enough; talking it out didn’t help, only closing off once more and retreating back inside the safety of the concrete fortress around his heart, so close to getting to the truth of them and of himself before flinching. And now, here in a room surrounded by so many strange faces that hold their breath in the wake of a storm, Jaebum continues his assault of Jinyoung’s senses, digging his claws into the only place he’s ever seemed to reach. But instead of making him just angry, it  _ hurts.  _ It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It no longer feels like Jaebum is criticizing his skills but lashing out at the answer to a question that he never asked. Like he’s punishing Jinyoung for some crime that he never even committed.

And it hurts.

So the dam bursts. 

Jinyoung throws the papers in his hand to the ground. There’s the collective inhale of everyone in the room when they flutter and bend against the carpet as Jinyoung whirls on his heel to face Jaebum head on, whose eyes are still wide and knuckles white where he’s gripping the arms of his chair.

“You know what?” Jinyoung says, and his voice is strained, so much that it almost cracks. “If you want this done a certain way, then  _ you  _ fucking do it.”

The room falls into a hush. No one dares to breathe as Jaebum’s mouth falls open in pure, genuine shock. Jinyoung would feel good about getting a real reaction out of him, but he just makes a disgusted noise in his throat as he starts to loosen the tie around his throat.

“What are you doing?” Jaebum asks, stupidly, like he doesn’t know. But Jinyoung knows he knows what this means, the symbolic throwing of his tie on the table he’d been sitting behind with Jackson just a little bit ago. 

He also knows that this is career suicide. That no matter how satisfying it might be to break Jaebum’s director heart by quitting in the middle of filming near the end of a film schedule in which he is the main character, that he can never come back from this. He will be shunned, probably, cast off to do televised dramas with low ratings and commercials no one watches. 

And the rumors. Oh, the rumors.

But if he wants to survive this life, he can allow his heart to be continuously broken no longer. He had broken his own rules and this is what he has to show for it.

Jinyoung, having tossed his tie on the table, straightens his shoulders and levels Jaebum with a look. Every extra in the room has disappeared to him, everyone so deathly silent it feels more like a cemetary than an active film scene. He wonders fleetingly if the cameras are still rolling, or if someone in the audience had broken their spell long enough to catch it on their phone. Either way. He looks Jaebum in the eyes and steels himself against it. 

“I quit, Im Jaebum.”

Like a true courtroom drama, the entire place explodes in gasps of shock. Jaebum jumps to his feet out of his chair, pale as paper as Jinyoung buttons the front of his suit and starts to leave. Seemingly at a loss, all Jaebum can manage is, 

“You can’t-- you can't quit!” 

And Jinyoung accepts the challenge. “Fucking watch me,” he spits, and turns to walk toward the bar, every eye in the house watching his every move. 

“Jinyoung!” there’s a panic in his voice that Jinyoung’s never heard before. It must be a scary thing, having his main actor walk out on him like this. Jinyoung’s stomach turns and he sneers as he keeps walking.  _ “Jinyoung!”  _

On the other side of the bar, the partition gate swinging shut with a dull  _ slam  _ to separate them on opposite sides of the room, Jinyoung spins hard on his heel with a snarl already pulled up on his mouth.

“What? Are you going to try to get me to stay? Huh? All you’ve done the entire time I’ve known you and worked on this film for you is ice me out,” he barks, the room silent again, though this time he knows the phones are out. But the anger is spilling over and he can’t control the flood of his words anymore as he throws his hands up. “All you’ve done is act like I don’t exist unless it was convenient for you, and treat me like I don’t mean anything.” As angry as he is, it hurts, too, knowing that at some point they have stopped talking about the film. “And I’m so tired, hyungnim. I’m so tired of getting hurt.” his voice breaks. “I’m tired of not being good enough, and I’m tired of not being able to fix it.”

And Jaebum, for all the world, just can’t stop  _ staring.  _ His eyes are wide as saucers, the whites visible, shining in the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Bambam has always said that it felt like Jaebum always looked at him like he was the only person in the room, but the way Jaebum is staring at him now, heart in his mouth, it feels like this is the first time Jaebum has really seen through to the heart of him. Like Jinyoung’s own fortress of ice has melted beneath the heat of his anger and he has turned himself inside out like old pants pockets and Jaebum has seen him for the very first time. The gears turn and the look in his eyes changes but the lack of a response is enough; everyone is already staring, confused, understanding that somewhere along Jinyoung’s monologue it had morphed into some other meaning. Jaebum’s silence tells him everything he needs to know.

Jinyoung, chest heaving, grits his teeth and turns to keep walking down the aisle and to the double doors of the courtroom.

His heart thumps in uneven shatters, drowning out the wave of whispers that starts to rise like the tide as Jinyoung approaches the door and puts his palms on it to push it open. The wood is cold under his touch and the lump in his throat becomes unbearable as he starts to push.

“Jinyoung!” 

He can’t help it--he turns, despite knowing that he shouldn’t, at the strangled way Jaebum call his name.

The courtroom is silent as Jinyoung turns just in time to see Jaebum leaping over the bar’s partition gate, as though even the few seconds it would have taken to open it and walk through were seconds that Jaebum couldn’t spare. He runs the rest of the way down the aisle before he skids to a stop in front of Jinyoung and breathes out roughly.

“Please,” Jaebum says, his chest slightly heaving, eyes wet but not crying. “Please stay.”

_ It hurts. _

“No.”

“Jinyoung--” Jaebum’s voice cracks in panic. He swallows and tries again. “Jinyoung, please stay. Just--just  _ talk _ to me, at least--”

He explodes again. “Oh, now you’re ready to talk? Right when I’m about to walk out of your film and jeopardize the whole thing? How convenient.” Jinyoung laughs but it’s ugly and it’s bleak and Jaebum visibly flinches away from it. “Did you not hear what I said? We can’t fix this. Talking has never fixed anything.”

Jinyoung could turn and leave, and he should, but there’s this look on Jaebum’s face that he’s seen before: it’s the look he had on his face after they kissed in the karaoke room in the dark. The fear, the panic, the parade of a million other things that Jinyoung can’t name with the speed that they pass over his handsome features. Sweat drips down the side of his face and follow the curve of his jaw where Jaebum wipes it absentmindedly away like tears. 

_ Tears.  _ Jaebum continues staring at him with that look on his face and Jinyoung remembers the way tears had stained his face that night. He can hear the slight wheeze in Jaebum’s heavy breathing and remembers the way his body shook in the alley like some animal shot through with an arrow. Jinyoung’s resolve breaks even though it shouldn’t.

Jaebum’s voice is weak. “Please, just--just stay, let’s go somewhere and talk--” he clears his throat and then half turns to address the room, who is watching this unfold with wide eyes and cameras aimed. “Does someone have an empty office we can use to talk? A private one?”

Nobody moves for a moment, and Jinyoung can see the way Jaebum’s pulse rises as it beats frantically in his neck. An audience member stands up meekly, though, a large man with his hand half raised like he’s embarrassed to be interrupting.

“I--I do, it’s room 617 on the sixth floor. Go right from the elevator and it’s right by the soda machine. Passcode is 0114.”

“Thank you,” Jaebum says, and then turns back to him, eyes still wild, heartbeat still battering the side of his throat. He drops his voice to a whisper so that only Jinyoung can hear him. “Go with me. Please.”

He almost says no. Jinyoung almost closes his eyes and says no, dropping backward through the door, but he sees the way that Jaebum’s dark eyes drown in a fear that can’t be faked and the rough way he swallows. It’s so genuine that Jinyoung is almost caught off guard.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. “Fine. Fine, let’s go.”

  
  
  


The hall, now empty of the crowds from earlier, is eerily silent as they walk through it without speaking to each other. Jinyoung walks a little ahead and tries to compose himself, so sure that he had won and had the upper hand, but now feeling unsteady with the emotion that Jaebum had allowed to display on his face. 

The elevator door opens and they step in side by side, although Jinyoung makes a conscious effort to stand as far away from Jaebum as possible. The silence is so thick it’s almost suffocating, two hands over their mouths, a knee in the chest. Jinyoung swallows audibly and the doors close, taking them up.

They barely make it to the third floor. Jaebum’s been watching him in the reflection of the elevator doors, and Jinyoung has been staring ahead, hands in his pockets.

“Jinyoung--” he tries, voice strangled, like the hands of tension are around his neck instead. But Jinyoung doesn’t look over.

“No. Wait until we’re in the office. And then you’re going to wait until I’m done.”

Jaebum closes his mouth and doesn’t open it again. The silence between them resumes, only punctured by the  _ ding _ of the elevator when it arrives on the sixth floor and the doors slide open with a quiet swish. Jinyoung, not interested in standing such a tiny space with Jaebum any longer than he has to right now, immediately steps out and heads in the direction of the office the audience member had told them to use. His hands shake only slightly as he punches in the code and opens the door, not bothering to hold it as he goes inside and stands in front of the desk with his back turned.

When the door shut and locks behind them with a quiet  _ snick,  _ Jinyoung turns as Jaebum immediately tries to speak. 

“Jinyoung--”

“Be quiet.” he says sharply, voice rough with all the emotion he’s been swallowing back since he’d stopped at the doors. “Be quiet. If you want me to stay on this movie so bad, you will be quiet and listen to me.”

Miraculously, Jaebum doesn’t argue. He presses his lips together and the carefully constructed dam behind Jinyoung’s tongue breaks again.

“What is  _ wrong  _ with you? Actually, what’s wrong with  _ me  _ that you hate me so much? All you’ve done is confuse me. You act one way this moment and in the next you’re a different person, like you can’t quite bring yourself to hate me all the way. You act like you don’t even see me, and then you turn around and you’re almost kissing me, and then you  _ are  _ kissing me, when you’re drunk and upset. Then you want to act like it didn’t happen, you act like I just don’t exist. But then you expect me to talk to you, directornim? You expect me to live like that, and then when I don’t want to talk to you, what? You’re angry? You don’t care about what people are saying about us? God!” Jinyoung laughs but it’s hysterical, his voice rising with every sentence. The breath in his chest comes faster and faster. “Every time we get close to having some kind of stupid breakthrough, you flinch.”

“I don’t flinch,” Jaebum whispers. His face is pale like all the blood has drained from it. A rabbit with its foot caught in the trap.

Jinyoung’s eyes have started to water. He smiles, but it’s a cruel smile.

“In the alley, you flinched.”

Silence.  Jinyoung lets the severity of that sink in for a moment before he continues.

“You told me that you wanted me. And I can live with that, hyungnim. I can. But then you turn around and do this?” he gestures vaguely, indicating whatever had happened downstairs while they were filming. “We don’t speak after something like that for a week and then you do this to me in front of all these people. You go backward, like it’s the first time we’ve ever met, and you treat me like this in front of so many people. And I just don’t--” his voice breaks, a single tear slipping down his cheek that he angrily wipes away. “It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are, not really, and I can’t be angry when I don’t know you, but I’m angry anyway.”

Jaebum’s face looks like he’s been kicked in the stomach. “You know me, Jinyoung-ah--”

“No I don’t,” Jinyoung says, laughing through a tearful hiccup. He wipes an arm across his eyes again and takes a deep breath to steady himself. “And you know what? I’m making peace with that. I don’t know who you are, and that’s okay. It’ll be okay. But hyungnim, the one thing you have to understand--whatever happened to you is not my fault.” he looks up into Jaebum’s eyes, those glittering black pools of despair and desire, and feels it mirrored in his own. “So stop taking it out on me.”

Dust motes dance in the streams of light coming in through the closed blinds. The air in the book packed  room is stuffy, warm with disuse, lights casting both of them in shadow as Jinyoung takes a deep breath that trembles loudly in the silence as they watch each other. Jaebum swallows and licks his lips, hands shaking.

“I--”

“I don’t want excuses, hyungnim.”

Jaebum blinks at him.

“Then I’m sorry.”

Jinyoung almost blanches. “What?”

“I’m sorry. You’re right, and I’m sorry.” his voice is strained and he looks away, one shaking hand raking through his dark hair. “I flinch, but you know what, Jinyoung? You flinch, too.”

“I don’t--”

“That night in the karaoke room, when I kissed you--” Jaebum’s voice cracks. “When I kissed you, and we got interrupted, you pushed me away and you told me to leave first, so that people wouldn’t see us come out together. You wouldn’t let me say anything, you just told me to leave."

Jaebum pauses, the length of a heartbeat. “You flinched.”

Jinyoung, unprepared for this, has nothing to say. He just watches the way Jaebum watches him in shadow and wishes, more than anything, that he could fix this by pulling Jaebum forward by the shirt and suffocating him with kisses. That pulling him forward and drowning the both of them in a feeling he knows is lurking just below the surface of them both was enough to fix the thing that they had broken before they even knew what it was.

“But you’re right. What happened to me, it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. Not even mine. And you’re right, Jinyoung, you don’t know me, because I won’t let you.” he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, bloodshot from trying so hard not to cry. He opens them again, finding Jinyoung’s right away, and holds them. “And I’m sorry.”

There’s a weight to it, that admittance and that apology. Like it had been something Jaebum has been carrying on his back for years, and he had finally found someone who accept a little of that weight; Jinyoung knows that it’s true, it’s genuine, and yet he finds he’s still afraid.

His voice is little more than a whisper. “I want you to mean it.”

Jaebum whispers back. “I  _ do _ mean it.”

Jinyoung swallows. Jaebum takes a step forward, Jinyoung takes one backward. Another step in both directions. Another, and then Jinyoung’s lower back bumps the desk gently, rattling the trinkets on it but not toppling them. He grips the edges of it as his heart starts to pound, Jaebum stepping even closer. Jaebum steps close enough that Jinyoung can hear the breath as it leaves his anxious mouth and can feel the heat from his chest as he traps Jinyoung against the heavy oak of the desk, fingers brushing his as he leans on his hands placed on either side of Jinyoung’s hips. 

They could kiss they’re so close. Jinyoung can feel the rhythm of Jaebum’s heart through his broad chest, pressed almost against his own, and can see the quick  _ thump-thump-thump  _ of it in the pulse point of his neck. Half-sitting on the desk, Jinyoung licks his lips and looks up and into the dark of Jaebum’s eyes, as honest and open as he’s ever seen them, and scared, too. But the moment has hypnotized them both, a bloodletting they both needed. 

“Just tell me what you want,” Jinyoung whispers. He can feel the way Jaebum’s heartbeat quickens when his breath ghosts over his nervous bitten lips and his own responds in kind.

He looks so  _ real  _ like this, doused in bars of light like a painting in the dark. Jinyoung changes his mind again, wants  _ this _ to be the image of Jaebum that he carries, living, breathing, burning.

“I want you to stay.”

And unlike the alley, where the confession had been pulled from him like a bullet out of a fresh wound, this confession is but a sigh, the fluttering of the wind from a quietly closed door. It is honest, easy, real. It does not fix all the things they have broken, but maybe it gives them a place to start. 

Jinyoung lifts a hand from the desk and presses a palm to Jaebum’s neck, like he’d done in the alley, but the urgency that existed then has seemed to disappear under the sharp intake of breath through Jaebum’s nose. Jinyoung’s hand slips lightly against the sweat on Jaebum’s neck until he’s gripping the back of it, gently, head tilted back; they could kiss, this close, and Jinyoung wonders if he’d mind. If, after it was over, Jaebum would tell him to pretend it didn’t happen. No matter what, he isn’t sure where they go from here.

From the look in Jaebum’s eyes, he doesn’t either. He looks scared, and his pulse is frantic where it touches Jinyoung’s wrist. But he doesn’t pull away. 

He swallows, roughly, and leans forward the last inch to brush their lips together in a kiss so sweet Jinyoung’s teeth hurt. 

Jinyoung’s fingers tighten on his neck when he does it again, lingering, kissing him harder. Jaebum’s hands slide closer to his hips on the desk as they kiss in the dark, lips sliding together and heartbeats quickening. Jaebum makes the softest noise in his throat when Jinyoung parts his lips for him and slides his tongue along Jaebum’s, so tempted to slip his fingers into Jaebum’s damp hair, but not knowing if they’ll stop if he does.

“Hyungnim,” Jinyoung whispers into his mouth, kissing back, heart on fire. “Hyungnim, I think--I--”

“I know,” Jaebum murmurs back, moving his hands to Jinyoung’s waist. He kisses him a little deeper for just a moment longer; Jinyoung tries not to whimper and fails when he feels Jaebum’s fingers squeeze his waist. 

They break apart, finally, both of their breathing uneven and their faces flushed. Jinyoung lets his hand fall from Jaebum’s neck to rest on his chest and Jaebum doesn’t move his hands off his waist but he bites his lips and looks afraid. 

“Hyungnim, where do we go from here?” he asks, voice soft. 

Jaebum bites his lips again for a moment, looking uncertain. “I don’t--I don’t know. But we can try to figure it out, right?”

_ I hope so.  _

Jinyoung pats his chest gently. “I think we should go back now, hyungnim.”

He allows himself to be pulled off the desk by Jaebum, who holds onto his hand for just a moment before letting go and stepping away to lead them out of the office. He follows Jaebum out, head spinning, as they head back toward the elevator and straight into the unknown.

_ But we can try to figure it out, right? _

In the elevator, Jaebum turns his head to watch him and Jinyoung closes his eyes.

_ I hope so. _

_ God, I hope so.  _

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! foxxing here.  
>  **there are special warnings for this chapter** that i do not feel comfortable putting in the tags itself due to them not being part of the overall story; i do not want to mislead potential readers **but** i want to emphasize that there are things in this chapter that do require notice and i am putting them here.  
>  **there are mentions of abortion, religion, death, and suicide in the following chapter**. NONE of this is explained in depth or detail, but the mentions are there and i thought that warranted a warning.  
>   
> thank you all for your patience and continued support. i think they're getting somewhere. ♡

 

 

Hyung, he’s really famous. Do you really think you’re going to get the role?

Oh ye of little faith,  _ Jinyoung had replied, cocky, perhaps too much so to justify the result. Yugyeom still didn’t seem convinced, anyway.  _

You haven’t even graduated yet,  _ he had said, his hair too long and sandy blonde, parted down the middle before Jinyoung leaned over to ruffle it. Yugyeom yelped and pulled away, trying to fix it.  _ Don’t try to distract me. It’s true and you know it. 

_ Jinyoung  _ harrumphed  _ and crossed his arms.  _ That doesn’t mean anything. I’m really good, and you know it. 

Sure, I’m not arguing that,  _ although it sounded like he  _ was  _ about to argue that.  _ It’s just that, you know— _ and he had shrugged here in a way that reminded Jinyoung of Taegun’s flippancy at his talent or lack thereof in a way that made his chest hurt temporarily.  _ You’re not established yet. You’ve seen the guys interviews, he’s really picky and weird. 

That doesn’t mean I won’t get in, though. 

_ Yugyeom had sighed.  _ Just don’t be disappointed. What’s this guy’s name again, anyway? 

_ Jinyoung found it in himself to laugh; otherwise he might have let the mix of Taegun and Yugyeom’s disbelief in him crush his chest.  _ You just said he was super famous but you can’t remember his name?

You know I can’t remember names that well, jerk. Movies  _ or  _ people.  _ Yugyeom bad said, and slapped his arm.  _

_ Jinyoung swallowed and looked at his shoes, the beat up Nikes he always seemed to slip on the day of his auditions. Like a lucky charm, maybe, or just a familiarity to keep him grounded like the comfort of a security blanket. He blinked at them as he played back an interview in his mind; that long, messy dark hair spilled over ears lined with chrome reflecting the studio lights. Baggy college kid clothes and sharpshooter eyes darker than a black hole. Jinyoung’s heart thumped and then stilled on an unfamiliar emotion. _

_ He licked his lips.  _ Im Jaebum. 

_ Yugyeom snapped his fingers.  _ That’s right! He made that one movie a couple years ago that blew up, I remember now.  _ He twitched his nose.  _ I just want you to be realistic.

That’s what Taegun hyung said,  _ Jinyoung said, and tried not to sneer when he did. But Yugyeom saw it, anyway, and sighed.  _

Like I said, just be prepared, you know? You said yourself while we watched one of his interviews that he seemed kinda stuck up and pretentious. 

_ Jinyoung had nodded and kept looking at the dirty laces of his sneakers.  _ Yeah. That’s true. I think he has a reason to be, though, I mean his first ever film was a smash cult hit. That’s so rare. 

Rarity will make him egotistical,  _ Yugyeom said matter of factly.  _ Plus, haven’t you read the rumors about him online?

Of course I have,  _ Jinyoung replied and tried not to make a face. _

_ It would have been hard  _ not  _ to read rumors about breakout director Im Jaebum on the internet, especially in acting circles. He was the talk of the town after his first film came out, a visceral and gritty masterpiece where gay sex was depicted abundantly and without fear. It was bold, and while the greater conservative public at large shunned it from its theaters, it found life in the underground ones, becoming a cult classic almost immediately. It gained the attention and respect of many people in those circles.  _

_ Jinyoung had fallen in love with it. In his pursuit of more information about the director he had to sift through the thousands of internet articles rife with comments that only speculated about his dating life. Like how he showed up to set multiple times with flowers and left without them but there was a male seen leaving set later that night with the same ones. Or how people thought he was straight and sleeping with his editor. Or how he would go to bars and clubs and get high and drink but sit by himself and people watch, almost looking like a king watching his subjects, legs spread and waiting for a concubine. Stuff like that that Jinyoung didn’t care about, he just wanted  _ more. 

_ But he wasn’t sure what it was he wanted more of.  _

Like I said,  _ Yugyeom repeated, slapping his back roughly and jumping down from the short wall they’d been sitting on,  _ don’t be disappointed if you get rejected. You know he’s picky and particular and it’s not a reflection of you. 

_ We both see it that way, he could have said, but didn’t. Instead he pretended to kick Yugyeom in the side as he laughed and twisted away with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Instead, he says, _

Like  _ I  _ said, oh ye of little faith. It’ll be okay. I’ll get in.

Sure,  _ Yugyeom said, beginning to walk away backward to keep facing him for a moment as he went,  _ he’s going to love you. 

 

** 

 

Jinyoung can feel Jaebum’s gaze on the side of his face all the way down to the ground floor of the courthouse even with his eyes closed. 

_ God, I hope so.  _

 

** 

 

Winter air, brittle and cold, whips against the exposed skin of Jinyoung’s face where he’s waiting outside the courthouse. The sun has long gone down; shooting, after it was all said and done between them in the office, was finished for the day. The two of them arrived back at the doors to the courtroom they were filming in and Jaebum shot him a nervous glance he didn’t return before pushing open the doors and announcing loudly that  _ pack it up, people, we’ll be back tomorrow in the afternoon to finish and start the next scene.  _

The looks Jinyoung got as he found half-baked sanctuary in the makeshift dressing room near the statue at the end of the hall were enough to make him quit on the spot again, if he wasn’t already so conflicted over how everything went down with Jaebum in the office. Those looks… Jinyoung can just see the rumors blooming like an endless field of poison flowers with every passing glance. There’s no escaping that. Just like how there is no escaping whatever happened between them. 

Regardless, he had changed out of his wardrobe for the scene and back into his street clothes which, now that he’s refused Jackson  _ and  _ Bambam’s offers for rides home, he’s kind of regretting. Turns out that tight jeans and a bomber jacket over a t-shirt really isn’t enough to keep the cold at bay. 

And to make it worse, the wait is excruciating. Jinyoung leans back against the marble of the low staircase wall and feels the cold of it seeping into his jacket while he watches their crew slowly trickle from the building and head home. Some of them nod at him in passing, but for the most part it seems like the majority of them are just—a little too embarrassed by his and Jaebum’s respective outbursts, he guesses. None of them bother to ask him why he’s waiting outside in the dark and the cold but Jinyoung, deep down, thinks everyone already knows.

He’d even texted Kwon and told him not to come.  _ Sorry, hyung, I know we kinda made plans but I’m still here so I’ll catch a ride with someone else and probably stay in my trailer tonight. Rain check on dinner? _

For whatever reason, Jinyoung expected the worst. Some detectable hurt. He had taken Yugyeom’s suggestion and breathed some sort of weak life into it only to take it back and he wonders if Kwon has noticed or if, like the wonderfully oblivious person that he is, only saw it for what it was: an invite to eat dinner and hang out together. Jinyoung has nervously been tapping the toe of his beat up nikes against the freezing pavement and waiting with cold hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket waiting for a response.

Finally, after another ten agonizing minutes in the cold when the stream of crew members has stopped for good, his phone buzzes with a response from Kwon.

_ :) no worries Jinyoungie. Let me know you get home OK , though. Taec has been texting me every couple hours even though he’s on vacation like he doesn’t trust us  _

Relieved, Jinyoung smiles. He braves the frosty air and winces as it squeezes his knuckles to reply. 

_ Ha, sounds like hyung. Will do, have a good night and I will call tomorrow when I need a ride  _

_ :)  _

Just then, the double oak doors open with a creak and Jaebum steps out, halfway into putting on another jacket and staring into middle distance with his lips moving slowly as though reciting something to himself. He doesn’t seem to notice Jinyoung standing there until he steps off the staircase and Jinyoung comes forward with an awkward cough and the shuffling of feet. 

Jaebum, startled, jumps before realizing it’s just Jinyoung. He finishes sliding his arms into his jacket and sighs with an awkward, lopsided smile. “Hi. Uh, sorry. You scared me, and—“

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just, um,” Jinyoung pauses. He scratches the back of his neck and looks away even though the piece of sidewalk they’re on is largely cast in shadow amongst the squares of light from courthouse lights above them. “I, uh, was just waiting for you.” 

Silence descends as Jaebum blinks at him in visible confusion. It’s cute, the way he kind of squints his eyes and tilts his head with the corner of his mouth twitching almost like he’s going to smile. Jinyoung doesn’t want to think this is cute; to admit that something Im Jaebum is doing is cute is to concede to the fact that, obstinately, their relationship is changing. 

But it’s just a fact. The way Jaebum looks at him is cute. And Jinyoung’s heart flutters. 

“You were—you were waiting for me?” 

Jinyoung tucks his lips behind his teeth for a moment to hide a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I was. I just—I wanted to say—“

“Oh, no,” Jaebum sighs, and the mischievous look drops from his face when he does. Even in the dark Jinyoung can see that the winter air has bitten pink splotches high into his cheeks and on the tip of his nose; Jinyoung distracts himself from the look of disappointment that crosses Jaebum’s face by staring at the rosy color washed out by shadows. 

“‘Oh no’ what?”

“You’re going to take it back, aren’t you?” Jaebum says, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “Look, maybe I was out of line to kiss you back there and I’m—I’m sorry—“

Jinyoung feels funny at the obvious way Jaebum has slumped into this… nervous creature, jacket pockets straining with the force of his fists as he pushes them anxiously into the pockets and his adam’s apple bobs around a swallowed apology. Jinyoung, as if out of reflex, reaches out to put a comforting hand on Jaebum’s elbow. 

“No—don’t be sorry for that.” Jinyoung swallows just as nervously; he thinks offhandedly that if the atmosphere between them was any more awkward the earth would buckle and suck them in. He titters nervously and that cute, confused look comes over Jaebum’s face again. Jinyoung looks away and feels his own face start to burn. “I started it, anyway.” 

Jaebum laughs. He  _ laughs,  _ a quiet version of the one he always heard echoing in the hallway on set and directed and someone else. Jinyoung’s heart leaps and starts to beat harder. 

“You did? I think—if I recall correctly,  _ I’m  _ the one who leaned in.” 

“Yeah, but—“ Jinyoung pulls his hand away and rocks back on his heels while avoiding Jaebum’s eyes that he can, like always, feel boring into the center of him. “I invited it.” 

“Trying to take credit for my hard work, Mr. Park?”

This makes Jinyoung laugh, a real one, one that he quickly covers with a hand and twists away from. He can hear Jaebum chuckling under his breath and he wishes so fervently that instead of wasting each other’s time with the little agonies of insecurity, that it could have always been like this. Awkward and wonderful, almost like first love. 

Jaebum titters with a nervous flapping of one hand pulled from a pocket with no real destination. “This is—“

“Weird, right?” they say at the same time, voices in sync. Both of them burst out in startled laughter. Jinyoung unconsciously mirrors Jaebum by putting his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket to respond. 

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a little weird.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no, stop apologizing. It’s my fault too, that us trying to have a normal conversation is weird.” Jinyoung blinks at him; even shadowed in the dark of the building like this, those feline eyes of his are sharp. brilliant, burning to the core of him. “It’s—it’s weird but I think we can get past it. You know? I’d like to, anyway.” 

Jaebum smiles and his eyes fold to crescents. Jinyoung’s heart takes off with a flying leap at the sight of it—god, could he ever have really prepared for what it would be like to have that smile aimed at him? The real one, the real laugh, too. He thinks that even with all the time in the world slowed to a crawl that he could not have prepared himself for the way his stomach bottoms out when Jaebum steps closer to fill the space between them to almost nothing. 

Heat radiates off his body. Their heights are similar, although Jaebum is a little bit taller; Jinyoung flicks his eyes up to look at him and has to resist the urge to grab Jaebum by the front of his jacket and slam their bodies together out in the open. Even standing like this, maybe a foot or so between their chests, Jaebum’s head slightly angled like at any moment Jinyoung will tip his head back for a kiss, is pure danger. The scene they made in the coffee shop, the courtroom today, all fuel for a fire that’s been burning on the internet since the day they met. Pictures of them kissing outside after something like that would turn that fire into a blaze.

But, true to the words he had spoken in the coffee shop,  _ I do know, Jinyoung, and I don’t fucking care,  _ Jaebum does not step further away. In fact he seems to be totally ignorant of the fact that someone could be taking their photo from somewhere or maybe Jinyoung is just being too paranoid. Jaebum stands his ground and when he takes a deep breath, their chests brush, ever so lightly. 

“I’d like that, too. I think—I think we’ll get passed it, yeah.” 

Jinyoung can’t help it. His hands slip from his pockets and grab the front of Jaebum’s sweatshirt, bunching it tight to his knuckles. It pulls Jaebum’s body forward the last few inches until they’re touching stomach, hip, thigh. He swallows.

His voice is a whisper. “Director Im—“

Jaebum laughs, softly. His own hand slips from a pocket to slide a palm along Jinyoung’s neck. The sensation sends electricity crackling through Jinyoung’s skin like Jaebum had held a lighter to his throat instead. 

“Don’t call me that,” he murmurs, and Jinyoung thinks that Jaebum really  _ will  _ kiss him out here. “I’m not your director right now.” 

His heart hammers wildly in his chest. Jinyoung can feel the heat of Jaebum’s breath on his mouth, the warmth of both hands where they settle on his lean hips. Fire burns inside of him, uncontrollably. 

But there’s still a fear in him. A pebble, impervious to the fire, settled right in his heart. Jaebum doesn’t care about the rumors, it seems, but Jinyoung thinks he does, in his way. He cares, because Jaebum never addresses personal questions in interviews, is cold and closed off. Jaebum may not care about the drama surrounding rumors but Jinyoung knows that, in some way, he cares.. And Jinyoung—Jinyoung  _ does  _ care, more blatantly. The thought of a photo of this moment plastered on a website homepage before either of them really get to analyze it makes his stomach hurt so badly that he takes a step back right into the low wall. 

“Are you okay?” Jaebum asks; his hands have fallen away from Jinyoung’s hips, but Jinyoung only let go of his jacket with one hand. He doesn’t seem miffed or disappointed, just neutral. The kind of feeling out that Jinyoung is used to. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just—you should get going, you know? I need to get going, too, I don’t want the subways to close—“

Jaebum cocks his head again and Jinyoung’s heart melts in kind. “You’re taking the subway? Why isn’t your driver picking you up?”

“Oh, I told him not to, since I wanted to wait out here for you to talk to you. So I was just going to take the subway back—“

“Let me take you home,” Jaebum interrupts suddenly, and his face flushes quickly after when Jinyoung’s eyes widen in the dark, surprised. He coughs awkwardly. “Um, if you want, I mean, I don’t have to. Just thought I’d ask, since I drove myself today and my car’s right over there—“

Something in Jinyoung’s chest unfolds. Jaebum’s eyes are squinted, against the cold and against the embarrassment, he’s sure, but they are deep and they are honest, and Jinyoung can feel the heart in his chest shifting to fit a new shape. The flower that only blooms at night, his heart, and the petals have begun to dance. 

“Yeah. Yeah, hyungnim. I’d like that.”

  
  
  


The set had been downtown, and it takes only ten minutes in a quiet car for Jinyoung to realize that a 45 minute drive not accounting for traffic may have been biting off more than they could chew. Maybe. 

It’s silent, but balancing on the cusp of awkwardly so, not quite tipped either way. Music plays lowly over the radio; it’s connected to Jaebum’s phone by bluetooth, so Jinyoung can see the names of various R&B artists and American musicians as they scroll by, but none of it is particularly familiar to him. Part of him thinks that the easiest way to keep the silence between them from delving into awkward would be to ask about it, but every time he opens his mouth to say something, his breath seems to catch in his throat. 

He sighs. 

“You okay?” Jaebum asks suddenly, voice low. He reaches over to turn the radio down and off. 

“Yeah,” Jinyoung replies. He adjusts in his seat to sit up straighter and unconsciously wipes his damp palms down the thighs of his jeans. “I’m—I’m sorry this feels so awkward.” he laughs and rubs the back of his hair with his face to the window, not wanting to see the look on Jaebum’s face. “I keep trying to think of something to say but—everything I try to think of sounds so  _ lame.” _

Jaebum snorts. “Me too, actually,” he confesses, and blushes visibly in the dark of the car when Jinyoung looks over at him. “I keep trying to think of something to ask you to start a conversation but everything feels boring. You know? Like, how cliche would it be if I asked you what your favorite movie is?”

He means this as a joke, and Jinyoung laughs softly at it, but he still feels his heartbeat stutter and answers anyway. 

“Well, if you must know, my favorite movie is yours.”

Both of them make a noise of surprise: Jaebum, caught off guard by Jinyoung’s honest answer, accidently jerks the wheel a bit. “Jesus, I’m sorry. You okay?”

Jinyoung smiles at him and pats his arm in forgiveness. “Yes. Surprised?”

“Yeah. Just—really? You’re not just saying that, right?”

“No! No, of course not. I mean it. My favorite movie is yours. The first one.”

Jaebum swallows like he’s nervous. “Really?”

With a nod, Jinyoung adjusts in his seat again so that he can lean against the window and watch Jaebum’s profile as he drives. Like this, haloed by city light that passes in brilliant flashes, he can finally allow himself the freedom to appreciate just how handsome he really is. 

It is not so much that he is more handsome now than he has been; Jaebum has always been handsome in Jinyoung’s eyes, ever since the first time he saw him in an interview, and Jinyoung is confident that Jaebum was handsome, too, as a teenager. But the kind of handsome that he had been when this started was a brutish kind. It came to Jinyoung in waves. It was hard to look at Jaebum’s face and know he was handsome when he was too busy arguing or wondering what it was that Jaebum hated about him so much. It was hard to appreciate the handsomeness of his face when it was screwed up in anger or painted with anguish and doubt and unnameable misery. 

But, like this, Jinyoung can simply see it. There is no anger to hide behind, no argument. Jaebum glances at him when Jinyoung doesn’t answer right away, seems to notice that Jinyoung has slipped into a pensiveness that he was not allowed to follow, and looked back at the road with his knuckles tightening to white on the wheel. The city light glances off the slope of Jaebum’s elegant nose, catches itself on the swell of his bottom lip when he wets it with a nervous tongue. All the time Jinyoung spent agonizing over him, softened so furiously by admiring the handsomeness of his face in a light so gentle that it’s almost painful. Jinyoung sucks in a shortened breath. 

“Yes, really,” he finally says, and Jaebum lets out a breath neither of them knew he’d been holding. “You have to know, hyungnim. Wormwood changed my whole life.”

Again, a look like a wince of pain passes across Jaebum’s features and then disappears again. Jinyoung wonders what it means but doesn’t ask, too afraid of breaking the spell they’ve found themselves cast under. He will tell Jinyoung what that look means, hopefully, in his own time. It’s best to be patient. 

“That’s so—that’s mind blowing to me,” Jaebum says with a soft laugh. “How so? If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

Jinyoung drops his head against the window and keeps watching the side of Jaebum’s face. He thinks about the first time he watched Jaebum’s first film, as a fresh-faced, recently out, lifelong drama kid getting to explore college life. He’d wanted to take Yugyeom but he was busy that night, and so Jinyoung had gone alone. 

“When I first heard about it, I wasn’t sure what to think about it. It was really starting to get popular in the indie film scene, when I heard of it, and at that point I was still very much on the theatre circuit instead of, you know, acting in movies and such. But lots of my theatre friends were gay and any sort of film or show that even skated against mainstream that had gay themes, they knew about it.” Jinyoung chuckles fondly. “So they told me about it, and I wasn’t sure. You know, I wasn’t huge into movies anyway, mostly worried about where acting in theatre was going to get me. But they convinced me to at least see it, see what I thought. I tried to take Yugyeom but he busy, and so I went by myself.”

Jaebum blanches. “You saw it alone?”

“Yep. Of course, if I had known—“ scenes from the movie flash before his eyes when he blinks, and he hesitates for a single moment before continuing. “If I had known what it was about, I do think I would have taken someone with me. But I saw it alone and, god—just, everything about it. It changed me. You know? Everyone has that one thing, and it changes them forever. That was mine.”

The car is silent after his confession; Jaebum’s face is red, visible under the streetlights, and Jinyoung wishes he could just kiss him until they fell apart. Seeing Jaebum so humbled by Jinyoung’s meager words when it had at first seemed like Jaebum was king of some distant, untouchable planet makes him feel like singing. 

Jinyoung decides to continue. “And I—god, this is so embarrassing and Yugyeom would be kicking the back of my seat in glee if he were here to hear me say this. but—I got obsessed with you, afterward.”

_ “Obsessed?”  _ Jaebum barks, so surprised that he taps the brakes a little too hard at the stop light and locks both their seatbelts. Red light floods the car and reflects in Jaebum’s eyes when he looks over. The surprise is blatant, written all over his face in how big his eyes have become and the eyebrows nearly in his hairline. “You— _ what?”  _

“I got obsessed with you!” Jinyoung says through a laugh, covering his face with one hand. His heartbeat quickens when Jaebum’s fingers wrap around his wrist gently and pull it away, not letting go, eyes meeting. “Like, I couldn’t stop watching every interview you were ever in. I read all your interviews, watched any of your press material I could get my hands on.”

“Wow,” he murmurs, fingertips pressing into the heartbeat in Jinyoung’s wrist. The light turns green; Jaebum turns to keep driving but he doesn’t let go of his grip on Jinyoung’s wrist. Jinyoung doesn’t ask him to. 

“Yeah. So imagine my heartbreak when you rejected my casting application for your second movie.”

Jaebum lets out a startled burst of laughter, and Jinyoung laughs too with a slap to Jaebum’s leg. 

“Yah,” Jinyoung whines, still grinning, “don’t be mean!” 

“I’m not! I don’t remember that.” Jaebum bites his bottom lip to hide his smile. “I’m sorry.” 

“For laughing or rejecting my casting application?”

“For rejecting your casting application. I don’t even remember seeing your name in it, honestly. I was pretty picky, then, and you—you must have still been in college, right?” 

Jinyoung nods and feels reluctant when Jaebum’s fingers uncurl from around his wrist and return to hang between his thighs as he drives.

“Yeah. And, hey, you’re still pretty picky now. My manager was so reluctant to even try to get me an audition with you for this movie, I had to annoy him for weeks. He probably wanted to quit.”

“I’m still picky, huh?” Jaebum laughs. “No, you’re right.  But Jinyoung, you should know…” he trails off and looks embarrassed. “I—I really liked you, too. When your manager called and said who he was representing, I considered giving you the role without even having you come in.” 

It feels like the whole car flips upside down. For weeks when Jinyoung arrived it felt like all Jaebum really wanted was for Jinyoung to quit or push his luck too far and get fired. All he felt in the beginning was this awful sort of dislike rolling off Jaebum in his direction, as though he regretted his decision to cast Jinyoung but couldn’t take it back. And now, to find out it was the opposite? That Jaebum had very nearly abandoned the whole auditions process just because he expressed his interest? God, his life gets more strange and more complicated every single moment. 

“I thought you hated me.”

“No. I just—“ he pauses, blinking into the city lights pouring in through the windshield, lapsing into silence as Jinyoung points at where to turn. His face no longer has the smiles hidden at the corners but rather a deep well of some unameable feeling; he lets the silence linger just a little longer before he takes a deep breath and says,

“I didn’t hate you. Not even a little bit. But I—there’s things in my life, Jinyoung—“

Jinyoung can see just how much distress even skirting around this is causing him. Jaebum had guided the car into the parking lot of Jinyoung’s apartment complex and pulled into an empty space, staring out the windshield at an uninteresting and unpainted concrete wall like it had a gun to his head. It is clear to him, then, that the kingdom of ice that Jaebum’s heart had succumbed to was built on so much more than he could ever even imagine. 

With the engine idling and the headlights dim, the cab of the car is washed in a gentle darkness. Their bodies glow orange from the reflection on the wall. There is a quickness to Jaebum’s breathing that wasn’t there before and Jinyoung, heart swelling, puts a comforting hand on Jaebum’s neck like he’d done in the alley all those days ago. 

“Stop,” Jinyoung murmurs gently. Jaebum’s skin jumps under his hand but the heartbeat thundering against his palm starts to steady. “Don’t tell me. Not now. Just tell me something else.”

Jaebum swallows, relaxing into the driver’s seat and blinking slowly. “My favorite movie is yours.” 

“Huh?”

“My favorite movie,” Jaebum says, and turns his head where it’s dropped back against the headrest to look at him with those eyes as deep as galaxies. He grabs Jinyoung’s wrist where Jinyoung is still touching his neck and holds it as a smile spreads across his handsome face. “Is yours. The one you filmed with Lee Minho sunbaenim.  _ Run, Devil.  _ That’s my favorite movie.”

Jinyoung’s heart starts to pound. He wonders if Jaebum can feel it in his wrist. 

“You’re just saying that.” 

“No, I’m not,” Jaebum murmurs. “It’s my favorite.”

Something in Jinyoung’s heart shifts. Like a bone popped out of place, it sits uncomfortably against his ribs, but it isn’t a bad feeling, only a different one, and he wonders what it is. The atmosphere between them changes once again—the air, shuffling its feet to build up static charge. That powerline between them that slept, now permanently awake. 

Jinyoung’s breath hitches. “Hyungnim—“

Without answering, Jaebum uses his grip on Jinyoung’s wrist to pull himself forward just as Jinyoung’s phone starts to ring in his pocket. Startled, Jinyoung looks down at his hip just as Jaebum leans in for a kiss—it would have been romantic, he’s sure, had it landed. Instead, Jinyoung starts to say “I think that’s my manager—“ just as Jaebum’s lips catch awkwardly at the juncture of his cheek and ear. 

Jinyoung yelps—his phone keeps ringing, ignored, as he turns his face too quickly and knocks his head against Jaebum’s when he tries to pull away. 

“Oh, my god,” Jinyoung breathes in a rush, cupping the side of Jaebum’s face with one hand as he winces from the smarting mark on his temple, his own forgotten. “I’m so stupid. Are you okay? I’m so sorry—“

Miraculously, Jaebum starts laughing. Beautifully so. Nice and loud and real. Jinyoung’s heart twitches and he starts to smile. 

Rubbing the spot they’d hit, Jaebum looks at him. “I’m okay. Sorry, maybe I should have announced I was leaning in, huh?”

“I shouldn’t have tried to answer the phone,” he laments, sagging sideways into the seat turned toward Jaebum. Jaebum laughs softly at his pouty expression. “It’s not funny!”

“It’s a little funny,” Jaebum says. “Perfectly awkward and cliche. Just like the movies, huh?”

Jinyoung bites his lips and smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, just like the movies.”

There’s a moment that passes where all they do is look at each other. Both of their mouths caught on similar smiles, temples sore, heartbeats synced. Jaebum sighs at him through his smile and Jinyoung knows its time to go. 

“Time to go?” Jinyoung says softly, wishing that it wasn’t, or that either of them were brave enough not to let it end.

Jaebum nods, although a little reluctantly. “Yeah. It’s been a long day, for both of us. Tomorrow will be long. too, filming wise. We both need to sleep.”

The unspoken implication of those words hang heavily in the air, fixed by their eyes.  _ If we spend the night together, no one is getting any sleep.  _

Jinyoung swallows.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Jinyoung says, taking a deep breath and shifting to gather up his bag. He slides his phone out of his pocket to see that it was indeed Taecyeon who had called him, but the text he sent after said to just call tomorrow. Jinyoung looks at Jaebum once more just before he steps out of the car. 

“Do you wanna try again?” 

“Try what?” 

“Kissing me.” 

Jaebum smiles. “Yeah.” 

“Go ahead, then.”

And he does. 

Their lips meet, once, soft and brief when he leans in. It’s more of a slide of Jaebum’s lips against his own, the promise of something better, a memory to keep him warm later in bed. Jaebum pulls away and flips the headlights back on, face burning visible red. 

“Goodnight, Jinyoung-ah.”

His heart, which had once hurt so badly at the nickname that Jaebum hadn’t earned, flutters like a clumsy bird in flight. He smiles and slides from the front seat of Jaebum’s SUV. 

“Goodnight, hyungnim.” 

He waits on the curb, watching Jaebum watch him in the mirror until the car is out of sight. 

 

** 

 

“You’re really disrupting my vacation for  _ this?” _

It’s unfair, really, how Taecyeon can manage to sound so annoyed and yet so fond. Jinyoung covers his eyes with his arm and sighs. 

“Oh, c’mon. You’re secretly glad, aren’t you?” 

Taecyeon grunts over the noise of beach life in the background. “No.”

“Ha. Liar.”

“Shut up,” he says, but playfully. Taecyeon sighs. “But seriously. This is a good thing, right? I mean, you haven’t said much about it, but I don’t think you’d call me on vacation to tell me if it was bad.”

This is true. If something bad had come out of his conversation with Jaebum in the office, he just wouldn’t have told anyone at all, and allowed it to fester until it felt like he was dying. Taecyeon even says as much when Jinyoung neglects to answer right away.

“I’m right, aren’t I? If it was bad, you’d just sit on it and act like nothing happened. Then, weeks later, I’d find you crying in the bathtub or something.”

With a loud  _ ha!  _ of a fake laugh, Jinyoung uncovers his eyes and sits back up in the passenger seat of his car. Kwon, who had been ready to take him back to set long before Jinyoung was supposed to be ready, is waiting inside the coffee shop to get them coffee. He sees Jinyoung waiting out in the car and gives him an apologetic wave.

“Whatever.”

“But I’m right.” 

“I didn’t say you weren’t,” Jinyoung mumbles. “Anyway, I just—I don’t know. I need your advice. Actually, scratch that—“

“Oh, you want my  _ advice?”  _

“—no! No, I don’t need advice. Okay? No advice. I just—I need you to listen. And for you to know, I guess. Because I don’t know where this is going, if anywhere.”

“If you’d tell me what’s going on, maybe I could make a guess.”

Jinyoung sighs and drops his head against the window. Instead of doing so, he avoids trying to explaining and asks, “have you… have you seen anything online? About us?”

The silence just before Taecyeon scrambles to answer is very, very telling. “What do you mean—“

“So, yes.” 

“Yeah. I haven’t been checking my phone much, but you know me. There’s… a lot of rumors. I saw the pictures.” 

“From the courthouse?”

“Yeah.” Taecyeon sighs softly. “It’s related to what happened, right? All these news sites—they’re saying it was some big proclamation from him. Like, I saw it compared to some big confession speech in a romance movie.”

Jinyoung makes a face. “No. It wasn’t like that.”

“But  _ something  _ happened.” There’s a smirk in his voice when he says, “otherwise, you wouldn’t be bothering me while I’m on the beach with a margarita in one hand and a beer in the other.”

“God, you’re so annoying.”

“Hey,  _ you  _ hired  _ me.  _ So it takes one to know one, huh?”

Jinyoung can just imagine he grin on Taecyeon’s tan face when Jinyoung laughs softly. Taecyeon continues, more softly, 

“Just give me a quick overview. When I get back in a few days you can tell me all about it.”

“Okay.” Jinyoung takes a deep breath. “Like—like I said, it wasn’t some big proclamation or anything like that. But he sounded genuinely worried when he thought I was gonna quit. And then—well, when we talked, we kissed—“

Taecyeon groans theatrically. Louder, Jinyoung keeps going:

“And! It wasn’t really resolved, I guess, but it also was? I don’t know. I ended up waiting for him outside after shooting was over and we talked outside and then he took me home. And then he—he kissed me again.”

“Jesus.”

His heart drops into his stomach; Jinyoung clutches the phone harder. “What? Why are you saying it like that?”

There’s a slight pause as Taecyeon audibly slurps a straw and the ice rattles around a now-empty glass. Jinyoung tries not to roll his eyes.

“No, I’m not saying it like anything bad. I’m just saying it like—like, ew, Jinyoung, it’s so  _ cheesy sounding—“ _

“Oh fuck off,” he says, but the anxiety fades and a small smile curls at the corner of his lips. Jinyoung looks up from where he’d started thrumming the threads of the hole in the thigh of his jeans to see Kwon jogging out of the coffee shop with two drinks in his hands. “Listen, hyung, Kwon hyung is back. We’ll talk when you get back to town, okay? But just—thanks for listening.”

“Yeah, of course,” he says gently. Beach life continues to murmur in the background as Taecyeon shifts. “Just—let yourself be happy, Jinyoung. You deserve that.”

Kwon opens the door, shaking drops of rain that have started to sprinkle the air from his dark hair. He hands a drink to Jinyoung and slides in to slam the door. “Ready?”

Jinyoung nods. Taecyeon, as if sensing that their time for talking is up, sighs. 

“And be careful,” he says. Jinyoung’s heart flip flops in his chest. “Tread carefully around him. I’d hate to see you get heartbroken.” 

_ You sound like Taegun even though you didn’t exactly say what he said, but it sounds like that’s what you meant.  _

Jinyoung says “okay, hyung”, and then hangs up. 

_ I’d hate to see you get heartbroken.  _

_ Yeah, hyung,  _ Jinyoung thinks to himself, hot coffee burning the palm of his hand where he holds it between his legs. He traces the paths of raindrops on the window as Kwon drives him to set. 

_ I’d hate it, too. _

  
  
  


When he arrives on set almost an hour later, the hustle and bustle is similar to that of the previous day, only the atmosphere is… not. 

Kwon dropped him off and left pretty much immediately after, citing a detailing appointment for the car that he couldn’t miss. This left Jinyoung standing alone on the sidewalk in the midst of cast and crew unloading equipment, getting a shakedown by makeup artists, or talking hurriedly into their phones to frantic managers. It would be an otherwise totally normal day on set, except that with every step Jinyoung takes toward the courthouse building, a hundred pairs of eyes start to follow.

Those who had said hi to him the previous day awkwardly avert their eyes when Jinyoung looks at them as he passes. He would roll his own eyes in annoyance if he didn’t have more self control; he knows the reason that every single person on set today is acting like this is because of his blow up yesterday. Of course, none of them know the real aftermath of it, although he’s sure that the rumors Taecyeon had mentioned led plenty of them to incorrect guesses. Regardless of what they think happened, he’s actually pretty annoyed that people would be treating him so differently just because of one stupid incident.

“Hey!” 

A familiar voice down at the end of the main lobby where their makeshift dressing room had been previously catches his attention. Jinyoung looks up and smiles when he sees Jackson on his toes and waving him over impatiently. 

_ Thank god, someone with a brain is here. _

Youngjae and Mark are also here, Jinyoung realizes, when he arrives at their portable dressing room and is bombarded with slaps on the back and rapid fire questions. Most of them he doesn’t catch. Instead, Jinyoung closes his eyes and puts both hands up to stop the both of them chattering away at him.

“Hold on, hold on!” he barks, and they both quiet down enough for him to look at them with a raised eyebrow. Youngjae, dark hair newly dyed with streaks of blue, sheepishly buries his face into the soft, white fur of his dog where he’s sleeping in the crook of his arm. Mark looks much less shameless, and Jinyoung wonders if Jackson grinning at the back of his head whilst getting poked and prodded by Bambam has anything to do with it. 

“Good. Now, one at a time, perhaps?”

Mark looks at Youngjae, who just nods.  _ You first. _

He shrugs. “Okay, fine. My first thought is, I heard you almost quit yesterday.”

“That’s not a question.”

“Did it have to  _ be  _ a question?” 

Jinyoung sighs in annoyance; Jackson, behind all of them with Bambam, laughs. It quickly turns into a yelp when Bambam presumably jabs him with a sewing needle.

“What is your point?” Jinyoung asks, folding his arms. Holding eye contact with a squinting-in-suspicion Mark, he realizes that he hasn’t seen Jaebum yet, and they haven’t spoken since last night when Jaebum dropped him off and they kissed. 

Again.

Something on his face must change: Mark starts to grin and turns to slap Youngjae gently on the arm so as not to disturb the dog. “Called it!” 

Youngjae drops his head back to pout. “That’s not fair! You see both of them more than I do!”

From behind them, Jackson chimes in: “You know Jaebum hyung better than any of us!”

Then, from behind  _ him,  _ and around some fabric between his teeth: “Leave him alone! If you keep making Jackson laugh and he ruins this suit, I’m getting you all fired. Jinyoung included.”

_ “Me?”  _ Jinyoung whines indignantly. “What the hell did I do? I just got here!”

Bambam’s bleach blonde hair bobs as he pops up from over Jackson’s shoulder. “You’re--you’re--I don’t know,  but it’s your fault they’re acting like this!” 

Jinyoung makes a face. “What an awful reason.” He looks over at Youngjae. “What are you even doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you, of course, but did you just come to hang out?” 

In light of the accusations being thrown around, it might have sounded insincere, but Jinyoung actually  _ is  _ glad to see Youngjae. Jinyoung gets to see him the least, and aside from their budding friendship, Youngjae knows Jaebum the best. If Jinyoung is going to get any insight into Jaebum without actually asking Jaebum himself, Youngjae is his best bet. 

The dog sleeping in Youngjae’s arms wiggles awake and yips to be set down, but Youngjae just shushes her and holds her tighter. He nods.

“Yeah. Hyung texted me this morning and asked me if I wanted to come hang out and see how filming was going, since it’s not often you guys shoot on location. Plus, he told me about what happened yesterday, so I thought I could come for moral support.”

Accompanied by a shifty look, Jinyoung actually gets a little  _ nervous  _ about what Youngjae might actually know. It’s not so much that he doesn’t want Youngjae to know, but he’s not even sure where this thing with Jaebum is going to go, if it’s going to go anywhere. It feels unwise to talk about it so soon, like they’ve suddenly become taboo.

“Oh?” Jinyoung tries to stay casual, but judging by the way Mark starts grinning and turns to murmur something to Jackson, it probably isn’t as subtle as he hoped. “What did he say?”

Youngjae gets a little shy. “Um, I don’t know if I should say--” 

“UGH,” Bambam’s loud groan cuts through their conversation, and all four them look in his direction as he lightly pushes Jackson away from the clothing rack. When he has their attention he puts his hands on his hips and rolls his eyes. “You people are the worst. Go gossip in the little boy’s room or something, and let me get my actor dressed and ready for his scene.” 

Nobody moves for a moment. Bambam throws his hands up impatiently and barks, 

_ “Move!”  _

The echo catches the attention of a few extras milling around nearby, who look over and then immediately begin to whisper to each other when they see Jinyoung. Mark, Youngjae, and Jackson all make themselves scarce with parting pats on Jinyoung’s shoulder as they pass, leaving him with Bambam who impatiently taps a patent leather toe against the marble floor.

“Let’s have a chat.”

“Do we have to?” Jinyoung sighs, but steps forward already starting to remove his bomber jacket. “I don’t have anything to say.”

He hands it to Bambam and turns under Bambam’s hands on his shoulders. “Oh, so you don’t have anything to say about that giant scene you made in the courtroom yesterday when you said you quit and then he chased after you? Like you were taking his heart with him, I might add.”

Hasn’t Jinyoung heard that somewhere before? He wonders briefly if Yugyeom and Bambam have been talking to each other and represses a shudder.

“I don’t know what you  _ want  _ me to say, then.” 

Bambam doesn’t answer for a moment, instead huffing under his breath and motioning for Jinyoung to start getting undressed. A few minutes pass of Bambam just yanking and poking at him with his suit for the rest of the scene until he hands Jinyoung his shirt and lets him slip into it.

“You could tell me what happened.”

“You  _ saw  _ what happened.”

Bambam thumps the back of Jinyoung’s head; Jinyoung yelps and ducks away from him as he buttons up the crisp, white shirt he’d been handed. “Yah, can’t I get you fired for hitting me?”

“Like you’d ever want to replace me.”

That’s true. Jinyoung doesn’t even argue that. 

“Look,” Bambam says, and his voice is serious enough that Jinyoung turns around to face him while stepping into pressed suit pants. “I get it. Both of you guys are weird, and weirdly private. So if you don’t want to tell me what happened, that’s fine, but I’m just--you know I really like you both right?” 

Jinyoung, caught off guard by Bambam’s sudden seriousness, straightens. “Yeah. Yeah, of course I do. I like you, too.”

“Then just try and understand me for a sec, okay? I’m not--I’m not trying to get an answer out of you because I want to gossip, or something. I care about you guys. And you’re right, I saw what happened. I saw you guys leave the room to go talk it out, and then I saw you come back and then everyone left. But I also saw the rumors blowing up online. You know? And whatever you guys have--”

For some reason, despite how sweet and awkward and wonderful it had been with Jaebum last night, the tone of Bambam’s voice makes him anxious. Like Bambam knows something that he doesn’t. “Bambam--”

“Just hang on. We’re way past the point of denying it, don’t you think?”

For once, Jinyoung doesn’t try to argue this. After so long of being purposefully obtuse about it, the only way to make progress is to stop fighting against it. 

“Exactly. Like I said, whatever you guys have going on, I’m just worried. You’re both really famous and I’ve seen what fame does to people who try to be together in the spotlight.” Sighing, Bambam hands him the belt and the suit jacket to finish getting him dressed. “All I’m saying is, be careful. Okay?” 

Jinyoung isn’t sure what to make of that warning. He lets Bambam put makeup brushes to his face with silence between them, trying to digest it all. For one, he and Jaebum only had one good night so far, and the majority of it was intensely awkward. Not that things can’t get less awkward over time, but for two people who have known each other for quite some time, it  _ was  _ awkward on a different scale. And they kissed, sure. But what if all of this, the making up and the drive home and the kissing--what if it’s just accumulating into the release of sexual tension? What if there’s no romantic feelings involved at all? What if, Jinyoung thinks with a sinking feeling in his stomach when the doors open and Jaebum steps through with an echoing whistle, that this was only ever destined to end up in sex?

Jaebum, after calling the start to their filming day, seems to sense him across the room. Their eyes meet and, miraculously, Jaebum smiles.

Jinyoung turns away in surprise when he feels Bambam slip an arm through his own and squeezes him tight. 

“Like I said. Tread carefully, okay?”

Jinyoung pats his arm; Bambam releases him and flaps his hands for him to go inside. 

When Jinyoung enters the courtroom, a strange sense washes over him. The memories of the previous day play back to him in perfect clarity: the way he’d thrown the papers, the gasps of shock, Jaebum jumping the bar just to chase him down. Sweat breaks out in his hairline when he recalls the way he’d been cornered against the desk, feeling Jaebum’s body heat in the staleness of the room, the gentle way Jaebum had kissed him like he was worried he would flee. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him as he walks down the center aisle to take his place near Jackson and avoids them the whole way.

“Hey,” Jackson says softly, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. “Doing okay?” 

Jinyoung smiles at him. It’s a little strained, but genuine. “Yeah. Yesterday was quite a day, huh?”

He finds that Jackson’s laugh still comforts him and he latches onto it with all the uncertainty creeping up inside him. He can, like always, feel Jaebum’s eyes on him from the other side of them room. Jinyoung has yet to look up and meet them with his own; he is a little bit afraid of what his face might give away if he does.

“You can say that again. The room  _ exploded  _ when you guys left. I mean, Jinyoung, people were out of their seats. It felt like a sports game in here, people speculating about what happened--”

Jinyoung feels his face turn red. He punches Jackson on the shoulder and moves out of the way for some of the last of the camera crew who set up near where Jaebum is still sitting by the jury box. Any moment now, Jaebum is going to call  _ Action!  _ and they’re going to have to face each other in public, eventually. He finds it makes him very nervous. 

“Nothing happened. We went and we argued some more, but we talked a little, too, and we worked it out.” Jinyoung wiggles his eyebrows. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Jackson laughs again. His dark eyes sparkle with mischief as he elbows Jinyoung in the hip and says, “I’m sure talking is all you did, right?”

It’s very likely that he knows, either because Jaebum told Mark and Mark told Jackson, or because he told Youngjae and Youngjae told Jackson. Or maybe Jinyoung is just that bad at hiding that something happened. Either way, he doesn’t confirm or deny; Jaebum stands up out of his director’s chair to get everyone’s attention and shouts,

“Alright, everyone! Let’s get started, and let’s get this right. Today’s our last day here, so let’s make it count.” Jaebum looks directly at him, then, and Jinyoung’s heart does cartwheels when Jaebum gives him that awkward, lopsided smirk. “We can do this.  _ Action!”  _

And, just like he said, they  _ do it.  _

For once, it feels like that odd two weeks where Jaebum barely had any criticisms of him at all. There’s no stopping and starting over and over and over like there was in the beginning. Jaebum never interrupts except for a few times and, by some miracle, he’s less abrasive about it. There is still that tell-tale sort of agitation to the way he sits, crossing and uncrossing his legs like he wants to say something, but for the most part, Jaebum lets the scenes play out on their own. And, it seems, for the most part, he’s happy with them.

Jinyoung almost can’t believe it. The only times Jaebum makes him personally stop and start over is when someone makes him laugh; he’s not sure that a film as serious as this one would ever actually consider putting together a blooper reel, but if they did it would consist of all the times Jackson accidentally made Jinyoung burst out laughing in the middle of a line. In the past he’s sure this would have  _ infuriated  _ Jaebum--after all, he even mentioned he wanted this done today and he wanted it done right. Every time someone laughs or makes Jinyoung laugh, they have to stop, reset, and reshoot. But every time Jinyoung laughs, he finds himself glancing in Jaebum’s direction, heart fluttering like wings when he sees Jaebum’s eyes folded in a smile. 

The day drags on. Afternoon break comes and goes; the sun outside the windows starts to climb down the other side of the sky until the bright blue of a sunny winter day begins to fade into the darkening of approaching twilight. Everyone is tired--in a good mood, for once, but tired, and mistakes happen a little more frequently. Jaebum only gets visibly mad once, but the next reshoot goes fine and then the very last scene is finally,  _ finally,  _ set up to shoot.

Just before they begin, Jaebum stands up out of his chair to address the room.

“Okay, everyone. This is the last scene--I know it’s been a long day, but we’re almost there. One more scene to shoot in here and then we’re done for the weekend. Tomorrow we’ll take the day off, just as a thank you to everyone’s patience and hard work.” He turns to look at Jinyoung; this next scene is mostly his, the titular character’s big moment. “The sooner we finish, the sooner we can all go home tonight. You got this, Mr. Park.”

Jinyoung thinks there’s the hint of a smirk at the corners of his lips, but he doesn’t want to look into it too closely. He bites both lips to hide a smile as Jaebum sits back down in his chair.

_ “Action!” _

Jinyoung takes a deep breath and gives the scene all he’s got. 

It goes well, too: he hits every mark, hits every line, even adlibs a few things here and there that he’s secretly pretty proud of. The room around him is enraptured with his performance. If given the option to choose, Jinyoung actually thinks this is his best performance to date--Run, Devil is the movie that launched him into fame, sure, but  _ this  _ is the kind of acting that he had always wanted to do, the visceral and the emotional and the real. The character engulfs him as he lets the rage rocket through him, delivering the performance he hopes that Jaebum had been waiting for since he casted him. There’s a swelling like pride in his chest and he hopes that Jaebum feels it, too.

It’s  _ almost  _ perfect.

Almost.

In the frenzy of his monologue scene, Jinyoung hadn’t realized that the lace of his oxfords had come undone. Jinyoung takes a step and turns, not noticing he’d caught the lace underfoot until he’s losing his balance and tripping into the judge’s bench.

He sticks his arm out to catch his fall, hoping that the relatively slow momentum of his turn will keep him from pitching all the way to the carpet. But the dark wood of the stand is well-kept and slightly oiled: his palm, where it landed, goes sliding against the surface of it. The sharpened corner of the gold plaque on the front catches in the sleeve of his suit jacket and tears a ragged hole in the fabric, slicing deep enough to open a long cut in the skin of his arm. 

Jinyoung hits the ground on his knees, managing to catch himself on the hand not curled into his chest. Jackson and Jaebum both jump from their respective chairs to yell out his name in panicked unison.

“Jinyoung!”

The room around them is silent. He can’t help but think, through the searing pain that begins in his forearm, that he has yet again made another scene. He wonders if some higher power has it out for him or if he’s just supremely unlucky in courtrooms.

“I’m okay,” he says, but it is audibly strained and comes out through clenched teeth. Jinyoung sits back on his heels and gingerly touches his fingers to the tear in his suit jacket, alarmed when his fingertips come away glistening with blood. “I’m--I’m okay--”

One of the camera techs who had been standing behind the judges bench drops to his knees in front of him, roughly grabbing the wrist of his injured arm and stretching it out to look. He hisses painfully through his teeth and tries to pull it back, but the camera tech just shoves his headphones back off his head and looks up at him.

“I know it hurts, but let me see how serious it is, okay?”

Jinyoung nods, and grits his teeth harder when the tech rotates his arm a little and visibly blanches at the amount of blood staining the ragged edges of his suit. He leans up to address the rest of the room:

“It’s not life threatening, and if we put pressure on it to stop the bleeding he won’t need to go to the emergency room, but he’s going to need stitches, and he’s going to need them tonight--”

“I’ll take him,” Jackson says hurriedly, digging through his pockets like he’s looking for his keys before he realizes he’s wearing the suit from wardrobe. “Just--use his tie to stop the bleeding while I go get my keys--”

Jaebum’s voice cuts through the low roar of murmurs in the room. “No! No, I’ll take him.” Jinyoung looks over his shoulder while the camera tech undoes his tie to wrap around his arm and is horrified to see that Jaebum’s face is drained of color and his hands visibly shake when he pulls his keys from the front pocket of his khakis.

He comes over, immediately dropping to his knees and putting a hand on Jinyoung’s back. “Are you okay?” he asks, but seems to make the mistake of looking at the blood-soaked arm of his light colored suit and the tie the tech is wrapping around the opening. That sick look on his face worsens; Jinyoung is actually worried he’s going to throw up or pass out.

“Directornim, if you can’t stomach it, it’s okay--”

“It’s--it’s not that, god, are you okay?” Jaebum’s voice shakes. The hand on his back has turned to a fist in the material of his jacket. “Look, he’s done wrapping it. Let’s go, Jinyoung, come on--”

It’s like everything else in the room has faded away. Jaebum doesn’t say anything to the techs, or to the rest of the cast and crew. He pulls Jinyoung up with an arm around his waist and ushers him quickly outside past all the curious onlookers to where his car is parked, miraculously, on the curb just outside the courthouse.

“C’mon, get in,” Jaebum murmurs, the shake still detectable in his voice. 

The energy around him is so strange, reminiscent almost of that day in the alleyway, but with a subtext that Jinyoung just can’t quite place. Jinyoung is in a lot of pain, sure--he groans and whines audibly when Jaebum accidentally bumps his elbow as he helps him buckle his seatbelt, the throbbing almost unbearable where he can feel the raw edges of the slice rubbing against the tight fabric of the tie. Blood has stained the arm of his suit to the elbow and dripped a bit to the wrists, splattering on his shirtfront, but he doesn't feel like dying. And yet, Jaebum’s face is pale as a ghost and his hands still shake when he gets in and starts the car.

He wants to ask. There’s something more to this, Jaebum’s panic over his accident, that Jinyoung thinks doesn’t even have anything to do with him. Through the hot pain in his arm he even remembers the way that Jaebum had gripped the wheel and said in a tight voice,  _ There’s things in my life--,  _ but he hadn’t finished. He had told Jaebum not to tell him, to wait, but Jinyoung wonders through the haze of agony pulsating in his arm just how long that their budding  _ whatever  _ can wait for Jaebum’s past to stop trying to catch up to him.

So he wants to ask, of course, but he doesn’t. Every thought in his brain becomes white-hot with pain, every bump in the road jostling him just so, so that his arm brushes painfully against the rest of his body. Every ache, an inhale hissed through clenched teeth. Not even the radio is on, just the two of them driving to the hospital in a tense silence, punctured only by Jinyoung’s slightly labored breathing and the deep breath Jaebum takes just before he breaks it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice wobbly but weirdly devoid. Jinyoung looks over at him in confusion, a mixture of that and pain twisting up his features.

“What? Why? It’s not your fault I tripped.”

Jaebum kind of laughs, but it’s a choked noise, and instead of making Jinyoung feel better it just adds anxiety to the list of feelings his body is experiencing. If Jaebum is about to tell him what a mistake last night had been, he kind of hopes he does it in a part of town where Jinyoung can get out and just walk the rest of the way.

“No, not--not about that. About everything else. You know, just--all the things from before--”

“Hey,” Jinyoung says softly. He stretches out his uninjured left arm to put a gentle hand on Jaebum’s leg, surprised to feel how tightly wound his entire body is. “We went over this already. It’s okay, remember? We’re going to figure it out--”

Jaebum takes a deep breath and his knuckles tighten on the wheel. “There’s just--do you remember what I said last night? When I didn’t finish? I said,  _ there’s things in my life.  _ But you told me not to say anything else. Do you remember?”

Even at just the mention of it, Jaebum looks like he’s going to shake apart. The painful throbbing in Jinyoung’s arm seems to fade underneath the worry that surges up when Jaebum bites both his lips and looks like he’s about to cry.

“I remember, yeah.” When Jaebum takes a shaky breath and doesn’t answer right away, Jinyoung squeezes his leg. “You don’t have to, Jaebum. Whatever it is--”

“Let me finish,” he nearly whispers. “Please.”

Jinyoung bites his lip and falls silent.

In a bent mirror version of their previous night, the oscillating colors of the city lights outside the windows of Jaebum’s SUV illuminate his profile in brillance. Reds and purples and yellows and deep, ocean blues halo him in a glow fitting for someone so beautiful, but the pain on his face is tangible, sharp like a knife he’s holding to his own throat.

“You didn’t deserve any of what I did to you. We both know that. Even now, I--sometimes it’s so hard to see past my own hands that I don’t know what I’m doing is wrong or will hurt until it’s already done. My past--” his breath hitches. “My past is so bleak, Jinyoung-ah. Dark. Like it’s permanently night inside my heart. And you just came in and shone a light on everything that I wanted to hide. I thought that I could keep it secret longer, but--when you fell and all I saw was blood--” Jaebum bites his lip so hard Jinyoung thinks he might break the skin.

Jinyoung waits, but Jaebum never finishes: they’ve arrived at the hospital, and Jaebum quickly puts the car in park before jogging around to Jinyoung’s side to open the door for him. He looks up into Jaebum’s face as he helps him slide out, but his cheeks are dry; no tears have been shed, but he still looks a bit pale and there are new shadows pressed into the hollows underneath his eyes. He thinks that Jaebum might have more to say but he just ushers Jinyoung in through the automatic sliding doors and stays quiet.

After they check in and get lead to a room, shut up alone inside of it, Jinyoung just watches from the patient’s bed where Jaebum sits in a chair and puts his face in his hands.

_ You just came in and shone a light on everything that I wanted to hide. _

Jinyoung’s heart contracts painfully. He watches Jaebum shake his leg in anxiety with his face covered by his ring-adorned hands spotted with patches of Jinyoung’s blood and wonders with his head spinning,

_ Hyung, what happened to you that was so damn bad?  _

  
  
  
  


When it’s all said and done, Jinyoung’s injury isn’t as bad as any of them expected. The wound was not long, just a little deep; the doctor explained that’s where all the blood came from but the stitches will help it heal with little scarring. The suit jacket and dress-shirt were named casualties; the doctor allowed them to toss them as Jaebum ran to his car to grab Jinyoung a t-shirt from the back of his car he kept for emergencies.

Once they’re back in the car and heading home, the silence resumes. Jinyoung busies himself with twisting and turning his arm trying to get a good look at the neat row of stitches bisecting the underside of his forearm, only lightly throbbing now and slightly pulling as the stitches tighten. Jaebum had put on a good face for the doctor, but now that they’re alone again, it seems as though he has pulled into himself to a place where Jinyoung is not allowed to follow.

Jinyoung eventually gets lost in thoughts of his own, wondering if getting hurt on set will end whatever they were going to try for before it even got the chance to start. He’s considering the emotional repercussions of blocking Jaebum on all social media after the wrap party when the car stops and turns off, red neon light from above them flooding the cab. 

“Huh?” Jinyoung startles, blinking. “What are we doing?” 

“We’re at the drugstore,” Jaebum says softly, like he’s afraid to speak too loudly. “The doctor suggested getting some antibiotic ointment for the first day or two. Let’s go inside.” 

Puzzled, Jinyoung unbuckles his seatbelt and slides out of the car when Jaebum opens his door for him again. He closes the door behind Jinyoung and the two of them stop, for just a moment, Jinyoung looking at Jaebum and Jaebum looking back at him washed in the dark of the night and halved by the light from the buzzing drugstore sign. Jaebum blinks at him and Jinyoung, unbidden, thinks of a line of poetry he had memorized for a theatre assignment in college:

_ Consider the hairpin turn.  _

He wonders if this is their hairpin turn.

Jaebum bites his lip and turns away, leading them into the drugstore with its too bright lights and too quiet music.

Despite knowing what they came for, Jaebum seems to wander aimlessly for a bit, passing medicine aisles that they have no intention of browsing; Jinyoung, despite knowing what they came for, seems content to follow. Jinyoung watches him patiently as he brushes things with his fingertips as though he’s considering, weighing his options quietly while his brain works faster than his mouth. 

He eventually leads them to an aisle toward the back, near the pharmacy, where the lit-up PHARMACY sign high up on the wall throws more blood-red light against the side of Jaebum’s face like spilled paint. Like this, dripping in red light and touching the boxes of gauzes and bandages and ointments with gentle fingertips, Jinyoung could imagine him as a figure in a stained glass window: like the angels with their flaming swords or saints with the most precious things cradled in their hands.

“I lost someone very important to me when I was younger.”

Jinyoung is surprised; the lengths in which Jaebum had gone to keep himself separate and secrets and then to make a public confession like this almost inconceivable. But Jinyoung was taught to marvel at a miracle when he saw one, and so he watches the side of Jaebum’s face painted in that heavenly red light and listens with his heart in his throat.

Jaebum picks up a box and looks at it, almost as if he’s reading the back of it, but Jinyoung can tell that he isn’t. He puts it back and continues quietly.

“It was horrible. In the worst way possible, I lost him. He was everything to me. We grew up together, just down the street. Fell in love young, and hard. Even then it was supposed to be forever.”

The heart in Jinyoung’s throat sinks. This thing that Jaebum has been carrying all this time, this burden, finally spilling out like blood from a jagged wound. The light splashed against his features illuminates him; Jinyoung can feel his heart breaking, turning, transforming. Falling in love has always been dangerous and in this moment, watching Jaebum confess stained with red light, Jinyoung realizes Jaebum is not the angel, but the sword, and falling in love with the sword is infinitely more dangerous.

“It was what it was. But then, a couple months later, I lost someone else important to me. My best friend. He was arrested,” Jaebum’s throat works on a rough swallow. “We were seventeen.”

“Hyung…” Jinyoung puts his hand on Jaebum’s arm, afraid Jaebum will push him away, but he reaches up to grip Jinyoung’s fingers. “What happened?”

There’s a pause, pregnant with hesitance, as Jaebum continues to blindly look at the items on the shelf. He swallows again and turns, suddenly, to face him, and the new angle has the neon reflecting in the depths of his eyes. So dark, so heavy with hurt that Jinyoung finds it hard to breathe.

“He killed him.”

Jinyoung gasps. “What--”

“My best friend--he killed--” Jaebum stops and takes a deep breath. “He killed my first boyfriend. They got into some--some stupid argument, I don’t know. Something stupid, I know that, but I can’t remember anymore. But my boyfriend-- he knew something that he wasn’t supposed to. My best friend, Jinsung, his family was deeply religious. Very deeply, which is surprising, considering he was friends with two openly gay boys--” Jaebum tries to smile here but just can’t. “He got a girl at our school pregnant out of wedlock. Not the worst thing in the world--of course, none of us cared. But to him? It was over. And he was so--he was so scared that he…”

Jaebum’s breath hitches dangerously. He has yet to cry, cheeks dry of tears, but the way he bites his bottom lip like it’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart in the middle of a drugstore is telling enough. His grip on Jinyoung’s fingers tightens until it hurts but Jinyoung just grits his teeth and doesn’t move.

“He told her to get rid of the baby. And of course she did--she loved Jinsung and didn’t want to lose him. We were just  _ kids-- _ she couldn’t handle it any more than he could. So of course she did it for him, but for herself, too. But neither of them knew that Yejun’s mom worked at the hospital that she went to. Jinsung knew she was a nurse, sure, but not  _ where.  _ And Yejun--he just happened to be there that day, bringing her lunch. God, he was so good to her--” Jaebum takes a shaky breath and keeps going. “They were sitting together while his mom ate what he had brought her and Yejun saw them wheeling Jinsung’s girlfriend to a ward that Yejun didn’t know and he asked her.  _ Mom, why is she going there?  _ And she told him--Yejun knew who she was, but his mom didn’t, and she told him what it was for. He knew. He  _ knew.  _ And when they had that stupid fight…”

Without noticing, Jinyoung had started to cry. Tears roll down his cheeks, heavy with red light, drops of blood burdened with a new pain. Jaebum squeezes his fingers.

“We didn’t expect Jinsung to be capable of that. But I guess fear makes people act crazy.”

Unexpectedly, Jaebum’s other hand comes up to cup Jinyoung’s jaw. His thumb wipes at a tear running down his cheek. “You’re crying.”

A little embarrassed, Jinyoung wipes his good arm across his eyes and is surprised when the skin glistens wet. Goosebumps have risen, though from the story or the cold, he isn’t really sure. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Jaebum murmurs. He reaches up again and holds Jinyoung’s face, looking at him with an expression that, no matter how much time he had, or even if he could stop time completely, Jinyoung could never decipher. “I’ll stop.”

Jinyoung’s voice is small, a tiny whisper in the midst of Jaebum’s shouting pain. “Will it make you feel better to tell me the rest?”

He nods. “I think so.”

Jinyoung wraps his fingers around Jaebum’s wrist and doesn’t let go. “Then tell me, hyung.”

With a deep breath, Jaebum keeps his hand to Jinyoung’s face, but his eyes go kind of unfocused as he continues,

“They were walking somewhere together, and I don’t--I still don’t know what they fought about. Jinsung would never tell me, and he didn’t tell me before he died. But Jinsung said in court that he brought it up--that, in the middle of the fight, Yejun said he would tell everyone at school what he did. What he--what he asked that girl to do. And it just--” Jaebum sighs. “It spooked him, I guess. He was terrified of his parents finding out and disowning him. He pushed Yejun, and hard.

“The river under the bridge they were on had been dry in the past seasons, but it had been raining a lot lately, then, and it was flooded at the time. The water--the water was moving so fast, and I don’t remember how deep it was anymore, but--there was no chance that Yejun would have made it. If it wasn’t the water, it was the rocks.” And, as strong as he had tried to be while he was confessing to Jinyoung, his voice finally breaks. “We looked for him for days before his body washed up in the next town over.”

Jinyoung feels his own heart break. “Jesus Christ, hyung.”

Finally, Jaebum pulls away; he turns back to the shelves to grab the few things that he had said they actually came for, and his voice is steady again:

“Jinsung died about a year later. In prison. I--I hadn’t gone to see him since after the trial. I couldn’t. I just--I still loved him, he was my best friend.” Jaebum closes his eyes. “But I just couldn’t. He killed Yejun. He betrayed me, and then he killed himself. There’s just--there was nothing I could do anymore. They were both gone.”

Jinyoung touches Jaebum’s arm, sniffling, and his heart contracts painfully when Jaebum looks at him and manages to half-smile.

“I’m sorry, hyung.”

“It’s not your fault. You know that.”

“I know, but I’m--I’m sorry for--” how does he articulate this? How sorry he is for ever considering that Jaebum was just some rich, entitled douchebag who thought he was above everybody. How he never even imagined that he was really just protecting the heart of shattered glass that he’d never put back together? “I didn’t know--”

“And you weren’t supposed to,” he says. “But you do now.”

Jinyoung bites his lip. “Why’d you tell me?”

Jaebum’s gaze under the red neon is a fire that just won’t go out. “Because you deserve to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I--” he stops, swallowing hard against whatever he’d been about to say. Instead he balances the bandages in his other hand and puts one against Jinyoung’s neck. “Because you deserve to know that it wasn’t your fault. That--that the way I acted at first, it had nothing to do with you. My past is dark, and I put up so many walls because of it. I could feel what you were doing to me and I didn’t want to let you in.”

Neither of them seem to realize that they’re still in public; despite being in the back of the drugstore and the store itself being relatively empty, Jinyoung is left reeling when Jaebum removes his hand and nudges him forward to the registers. He stands a little behind Jaebum as Jaebum pushes his wallet away and murmurs that he’s going to pay for it and has a short conversation with the cashier that recognizes him. All Jinyoung can think about is where they’re supposed to go from here.

When they get back outside, Jaebum hands Jinyoung the plastic baggie of their purchases and stops with his hand on Jinyoung’s door. Jinyoung, wary, looks at him once again doused in the red from the drugstore sign over their heads.

“Hey. Tomorrow, I…since I called off shooting for tomorrow, do you want to come have dinner at my house? It’s--” and he stutters a little, here, suddenly seeming shy. “It’s the least I can do, to make up for everything. We can talk, maybe--” when Jinyoung has yet to answer, Jaebum stutters more; shifts on his feet and swallows. “Um,  maybe get to know each other better, actually talk about things--”

Jinyoung, for once, wishes that he wasn’t famous. He wishes that Jaebum wasn’t famous, either, so that there would be no consequences if Jinyoung grabbed him by the front of his jacket and yanked him close to kiss him until it hurt. He wishes that, for just a moment, he could ball this moment up and keep it in his pocket forever, forever, forever. No matter what the future holds, he would always have this: Jaebum, not his director, not famous, just a man shifting awkwardly on his feet asking Jinyoung to dinner like the fate of his heart depends only on a  _ yes.  _

Instead, he just smiles, and hopes that, for now, it’s enough.

“Yeah. Yeah, hyung. That sounds good.”

In the shadow of the red light, the sword smiles back at him.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when jaebum connects his phone,  
>   
> ⏪▶⏩  
> [HIT PLAY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLVnDf0W_U)

 

“Okay, can you stop pacing? You’re making  _ me  _ nervous and this isn’t even my date.”

Out of reflex, Jinyoung turns from where he’d been anxiously fixing his hair in the mirror above his desk and says, 

“It’s not a date. No, wait. It’s a date, right?”

Yugyeom, splayed out on Jinyoung’s bed, laughs at the ceiling.

“Yes, idiot. It’s a date.”

Jinyoung takes a deep breath. “You’re right. Right? I mean, he never said  _ do you want to come over for a date  _ he just asked me to come over for dinner, you know? What if he—“

Exasperated. Yugyeom throws up his hands. “Yah, hyung, chill out. It’s a date. It’s obvious he likes you, based on what you’ve told me so far. Just because he didn’t say it was a date explicitly doesn’t mean that’s not what he wants.”

With a resigned and falsely confident sigh, Jinyoung plops himself down in his desk chair and closes his eyes.

Despite all the moments they’ve shared so far, Jinyoung finds himself inexplicably nervous for dinner at Jaebum’s house. Every thought he’s ever had about Jaebum seems to be chasing itself through the empty hallways of his mind, a constant wagon wheel turning, turning, turning.

_ What if he doesn’t actually like me? What if it’s really just sex? Sure he seemed really emotional when he told me what happened to him but—who wouldn’t? That doesn’t mean he likes me, but he did say he wants to get to know each other better… what if that’s just an excuse? Then why did he look shy? What if he— _

All of a sudden Yugyeom is groaning and launching a pillow at him, which hits Jinyoung square in the face and then the floor with a comical  _ poof.  _ Jinyoung blinks angrily at Yugyeom who sits up and leans on his hands. 

“I can hear you thinking all the way from over here, you doofus. You guys have kissed and made out. He like, told you some dark, ugly secret about himself,” Yugyeom says. He emphasizes his point by waving a hand vaguely in the air. “In a  _ drug store,  _ no less.”

“Is the drug store aspect important?”

“Just that I’m trying to emphasize that it was in public.”

That’s… actually a good point. Jinyoung doesn’t give him the satisfaction of saying that out loud and just keeps blinking at him with a blank look on his face as, once again, the gears start turning in all directions.

“Hyung, seriously. It’s okay to be a little nervous because you like him.” Jinyoung’s mouth twitches.

_ I think we’re passed that, Yugyeom-ah.  _

Yugyeom continues, “but seriously. You’re hyping yourself up way too much. It’s going to be fine.”

Finally, he can’t help it anymore. Jinyoung grips the arms of his desk chair and blurts out,

“I FEEL LIKE WE’RE GOING TO HAVE SEX AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.”

This time, Yugyeom closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He opens them theatrically wide and looks at the floor instead of at Jinyoung.

“Ooookay,” he says, dragging out the syllable for far too long, which Jinyoung is sure is an expression of mild discomfort but he just bites his lips and keeps bouncing his leg. “That being  _ way _ too much information for me aside, just—I don’t know, do what you usually do, then—“

“I usually have sex with them!”

Yugyeom turns bright red and shouts at him. “Then—then just do it!” 

Jinyoung shouts back. “Why are we having this conversation?!”

“You started it!” 

What began as Yugyeom’s attempt at trying to calm him down before his date with Im Jaebum—who is his director, no less, should either of them forget—has devolved into a shouting match. Not one of anger, of course, but one that involves the both of them talking over each other in higher and higher tones slinging playground accusations like  _ you started it nuh-uh  _ you  _ started it nuh-uh  _ you  _ started it!  _ until both of them sound like a VHS tape on fast forward. At some point, though, Yugyeom cracks a smile and the two of them dissolve into twin laughing fits, complete with watering eyes and aching stomachs. 

“Hyung,” Yugyeom gasps, doubled over sideways on Jinyoung’s bed, “don’t you see how ridiculous this all is?”

Jinyoung, starting to come down but still letting out a nervous-tinged chuckle here and there, sits back down in his desk chair where he’d jumped out of it in mock anger. “It is ridiculous. But, all of that aside, I can’t help but be nervous.”

Yugyeom, sensing that Jinyoung is transitioning back into a more serious tone, sobers up and wipes both streaming eyes with the backs of his hands before wiping them on his skin-tight jeans. 

“I know. Have you guys talked about it at all?”

“Not really,” he says, and pushes out his lower lip in thought. “Not in depth. We both mentioned how—how weird it kinda feels. You know better than anyone that all we did for a long time was just fight and fight and act like we hated each other. So, the sudden sort of—“ and he struggles for a word to describe it and falls back on what he’d thought of in the pharmacy, “—hairpin turn, I guess, threw us both off.”

“Kinda like navigating in the dark, huh?”

He nods in agreement. “Yeah. Yeah, you could say that. But we haven’t, like—we haven’t talked about  _ us.  _ About what it means, or how to navigate something like this.” Jinyoung fidgets in his chair; the tight, snowy white turtleneck Yugyeom encouraged him to wear underneath his camel trench coat feels a little too tight around his neck all of the sudden. “Like, we haven’t talked about how I’m still his actor and he’s my director. I’d be hard pressed to say we’re even friends. You know?” 

Having said it out loud, it occurs to him then just how complicated their  _ whatever it is _ , is, and how complicated it’s going to get from here. There’s always a possibility that it  _ won’t  _ be—he’s only going off what he has right now, after all, and what he has right now is this chewed up ball of messiness. Arguments, subtle and not-so-subtle jabs, public displays of aggression, half-witted apologies, sexual tension, kisses of anger, kisses of gentleness… but no real resolution and no clear goal.

It makes Jinyoung’s head ache. 

“I see what you mean,” Yugyeom says softly, pulling him out of his thoughts as they began to wander. “But think of it this way—it’s your night to talk. Right? Isn’t that what he said?” 

Had he? Jinyoung tries to remember what Jaebum had said to him about dinner; at first he can only picture how Jaebum looked in the light of the red neon. Inky black hair, long, but buzzed on the sides and the neck, spilling over silver lines ears. Eyes as dark as sin but filled with blood red light. The outline of him, a sword, burning with heavenly fire. 

But he had. Jinyoung, shaking off the sharpness of him in his memory, finally remembers. 

_ We can talk— _ and he had shifted nervously on his feet, here, suddenly a high school boy asking his crush to the dance— _ um,  maybe get to know each other better, actually talk about things-- _

“Yeah. It is. He said we could get to know each other better and actually talk about things.”

“Do you think he’s the type to ‘actually talk about things’?”

Unsure, Jinyoung looks at his fingers for a moment where they dance nervously against their opposites in his lap. But, no—he’s not unsure. Hasn’t Jaebum made that clear? They’ve only gotten to this point because they forced each other to talk, each holding the end of a double-edged sword. Jinyoung tried to say that nothing would come of it, that  _ talking won’t fix this,  _ but… it had, in its way. Somewhat. 

“Actually… I kind of do think he is the type to talk about it. I mean, he’s the one who did most of the talking in the office. Sort of,” he says. “I did too. We both pointed out our weak spots and I think it helped that we kind of forced each other to listen. And then, you know, he told me about all that stuff that happened to him when he was younger. In public, no less.” 

Yugyeom’s face falls for a moment. “Yeah. That’s really sad, hyung, what happened to him.”

He remembers the look on Jaebum’s face and the sound of his voice cracking when he’d said it, and his heart throbs. “Yeah, it is. But I think him telling me was necessary. You know?”

As if he’s worried about the next thing out of his mouth, Yugyeom fidgets with both lips pulled in between his teeth. He won’t look at him directly, for a moment. but seems to make a decision about it and sighs before looking over. 

“Are you going to tell him about Taegun?”

It doesn’t hurt. Jinyoung doesn’t recoil, or flinch; his stomach drops, just a little, but that’s all. He sighs in reply. 

“I don’t know. If it’s relevant, I guess I’ll mention it.”

“You don’t think it’s worth sharing that part of  _ your  _ history with him?”

Jinyoung shrugs. “I don’t know. Taegun—Taegun was only part of my life for so long, and it was so temporary. It doesn’t seem significant.”

“Taegun really hurt you though, hyung,” Yugyeom reminds him, gently, like he’s afraid of Jinyoung getting angry. 

He doesn’t, though. He also doesn’t deny it—Taegun  _ had  _ hurt him. Quite brutally so, actually; he had undermined Jinyoung’s feelings about himself, about the way others viewed him. Without realizing it, Taegun had—and Jinyoung had allowed him to—taint the way he presented himself as an actor. The way he thought about himself. The way he mulled over interactions with different people in the industry.

“You’re right,” Jinyoung says. He nods, and lifts up his hips to slide his phone from his pocket when it starts to vibrate with a new message. “I’ll tell him.”

It’s a message from Kwon:

_ Hi Jinyoungie :) I’m here, ready to take you to your dinner.  _

He sighs, and immediately all the nervous, jittery energy he’d had earlier comes rushing back. Jinyoung bites his lips as he stands and Yugyeom’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. 

“Is it time?” he asks, stretching his long, skinny body out across Jinyoung’s modest king-sized bed. “I think I’ll stay here and take a nap.”

Jinyoung rolls his eyes with a smile. “Whatever. If you leave make sure to lock the door.”

“Wow, you’re really going to let me stay here without you?” 

He pokes at Yugyeom’s side, hard, with a finger. The younger boy yelps and rubs the offending spot with a palm, glaring at him. 

“Yes. I need you to be here for me in case this night goes sideways.”

Yugyeom cocks an eyebrow. “What if it doesn’t and you end up spending the night?”

With more confidence than he actually has, Jinyoung shrugs and pulls on his trench coat.

“Then I guess the place is yours for a night.” 

Yugyeom whoops with glee. The sound carries, staying with him as he stands by the door and slips on his white tennis shoes and tries not to lose his breath, more nervous every moment. 

  
  
  
  


As such, his nerves make him fifteen minutes early. 

Kwon drops him off on the curb, waving goodbye through the tinted window when Jinyoung evades his questions about who he’s meeting for dinner at 7 o’clock in the evening and at their apartment, no less, but if Kwon looks at the internet at all then Jinyoung is sure that, one, he already  _ knows  _ who Jinyoung is meeting and, two, that he’s really good at hiding it. 

Nevertheless, Jinyoung avoids saying  _ I’m going to a dinner date at my director’s apartment and I have no idea what to expect  _ out loud with surprising finesse.

However, upon entering the building, it seems his earliness may have inadvertently caused him more trouble than he wanted. The modern, minimalist lobby of the apartment building is relatively empty—it’s surprisingly private, thank god, which shouldn’t come as a shock to him considering just how private Jaebum has always been, but the utter ghost town of it at such a time in the evening is weirdly disturbing instead of relieving. He tries to distract himself with looking at the rows of silver plated mailboxes lining the far western wall and trying to imagine what other celebrities must live in a building like this. 

As he crosses the beautifully marbled floor toward the bank of elevators, Jinyoung finds that he’s glad he wore his sneakers and not dress shoes—he kept it casual, with tight, dark denim jeans to go with his turtleneck and overcoat. and thus has avoided having to hear the anxiety inducing  _ click clack click clack  _ of low heels on the floor. Up ahead he's not surprised to see a desk positioned just before the elevators with a bored looking security guard leaning tiredly on the desk. Jinyoung has half a mind to just skirt around him and go up according to Jaebum’s directions— _ 19th floor, apartment 1901– _ but the watchman sits up and looks at him with little interest. 

The ceiling, one big piece of spotless mirror, reflects soft light from the fixtures back down onto them like faux sunshine. The watchman at the desk rubs one eye tiredly as Jinyoung steps nervously up to the edge of the half-circle desk.

“Can I help you?”

He’s not rude, just bored, but it makes Jinyoung feel more nervous for some reason. “Um, I’m just here to visit someone.”

“Name?”

“Mine or who I’m visiting?”

The guard actually cracks a smile. “Both. And and ID, please.”

Jinyoung nods and pulls his wallet out of his front pocket, a little embarrassed when it makes a cracking noise as he opens it to remove his ID. Jinyoung is rich, too, but his old, beat up wallet from his mom reminds him of his more humble days.

“Hey, Park Jinyoung! I know you! I thought you looked familiar,” the guard says with a lopsided smile, one that Jinyoung might find cute if he wasn’t already thinking of Jaebum’s. The guard hands his ID back and flips through a paper list attached to a clipboard. “Here to see—?”

“Oh,” he says, realizing he hadn’t answered. “Im Jaebum.”

“Burning the midnight oil, huh?” the guard teases, seeming to find Jaebum’s name on the list and tapping Jinyoung’s name by it to verify that he’s been expecting him. “Weird movies, weird guy. But he’s pretty nice.”

Jinyoung laughs a little nervously. “Weird?”

“Ahh, he’s your director. You must know, right? Real private. When he said he had a guest coming by tonight for some work stuff, he got all offended when I asked for a name. Asked if that could be kept private but told him he’s lived here long enough he knows I gotta confirm all the guests that come in since so many crazies have tried to stalk our famous tenants. Yannow?”

Jaebum  _ has  _ always been intensely private. It was one of the things Jinyoung always noticed in his interviews, that he shielded himself against things that were too personal. It makes him smile that he hadn’t wanted to give the guard Jinyoung’s name as his guest but there’s a strange, uneasy feeling somewhere in the back of him, too.

The guard flaps a tired hand at him with a lazy smile. “You’re good to go up, by the way. I get off shift soon but I’ll let the overnight guard know your driver’s car will be here at some point and not to call the cops.”

_ Will it?  _ Jinyoung wonders, and feels a fresh wave of tingling anxiety go up his back. He raps his knuckles on the dark wood of the desk and thanks the guard with a smile before heading for the elevators and jabbing the recall button just a  _ little  _ too hard.

Thankfully, there’s no one inside the giant, mirrored thing, and no one else gets on all the way until Jaebum’s floor, leaving him to marvel at the fact that it’s not only lined with mirrors and big enough to fit a Vespa in, but the floor is the same marble as the one in the lobby. too. 

Jinyoung cocks an eyebrow to his reflection.  _ Fancy. _

As the number gets closer to Jaebum’s floor and the simple watch on his left wrist ticks closer to 7, Jinyoung starts to fidget and nitpicks at his outfit in the elevator's mirrored wall. He untucks the hem of his stark white turtleneck from his unbelted jeans, but groans in frustration when he realizes it accentuates his hips better the other way and has to frantically tuck it back in. He turns his face this way and that, inspecting the tan, unmarked skin of his jawline and running nervous fingers through the lushness of his brown hair where he’s parted it quite handsomely so that it falls to the sides against his temples.

_ You look fine,  _ he tells himself, trying to make it true. Jinyoung sees they’re passing the 16th floor and quickly pulls his trenchcoat away, planting a foot and half pivoting on a toe to look over his shoulder at the curve of his ass in dark-wash jeans. He’s not sure how good it looks considering he’s not the one who has to judge, but he thinks it looks alright. 

Finally, the elevator  _ dings!  _ soft and musically on Jaebum’s floor. It seems that there’s only two hallways: one going straight, intersecting another to either go left or to the right. The lush, black carpet mutes his footsteps as he exits the elevator and it abandons him on Jaebum’s floor. 

_ God, how big are these apartments that there’s only two on one floor?  _ Jinyoung thinks to himself, arriving at the junction and wondering whether to turn right or left. He’s not hurting for money by any means, but he’ll be damned if Jaebum’s building doesn’t make him feel middle class. 

He turns right—no real logic involved, just an instinctive choice, and he prepares himself to go the other way when he arrives at a solid, dark oak door with a golden plated  _ 1901  _ sending his reflection back to him upside down. 

6:55pm has found him standing nervously outside Im Jaebum’s apartment door.

_ Do I knock?  _ he thinks, miserably, suddenly anxious about being five minutes early.  _ What if he’s busy? What if he’s expecting me right at 7 and not a minute later? Would it be rude to knock earlier than that? What am I supposed to do for five minutes? _

Turns out that worrying about what to do and fiddling with his clothes takes most of the waiting out of it. Jinyoung crouches down to yank up his cream colored socks underneath the tight rolls of his cuffed jeans and then checks his watch when he stands. He makes a face at it when it seems to shout IT’S 7PM SO KNOCK ON THE DOOR, PLEASE, directly at him. 

Jinyoung takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes, the dim, orangey lights of the hallway feeling more hotel like than an apartment building, and lifts a hand to gently rap his knuckles against the hard wood of the door. They make a solid, repetitive  _ thud thud thud  _ more foreboding of a castle than a high rise. 

There’s a noise like a dropped utensil against a counter from inside; now that he’s really listening, Jinyoung can  _ just  _ barely hear the sound of soft music playing on the other side of the door. The anxiety he’d woken up with that morning surges inside of him to a threatening overhead wave as footsteps approach and the doorknob turns. 

The door opens and reveals Jaebum standing in the frame it had made. Jinyoung’s breath catches.

He is a vision of black and silver. An exceedingly well tailored button up is tucked into fitted jeans, but half the buttons are undone and the tan skin of Jaebum’s chest glows gold beneath the black crystal pendant hanging in the hollow of it. Jinyoung can feel his heartbeat inside his ears as he looks down to take in the rest of him: rolled up jeans show off thin ankles in slick black socks and gorgeous ankle boots. Maybe in another life he’d be embarrassed about admiring him as he trails his eyes back up and looks into his handsome, smiling face, but not now. Not when he looks like this, hair parted off his face and eyes smoky and mysterious looking.

Jaebum leans against the door with a wide shoulder; the shirt billows outward just enough to reveal the edge of a collarbone. He gives Jinyoung a smirk and says, by way of greeting,

“God damn you look good.” 

It makes him burst out into surprised laughter. He feels his face redden and he covers his eyes and says, “me?  _ You  _ look good. I was too busy checking you out to say hi, I’m so sorry—“ 

Jaebum laughs and opens the door wider, inviting him in without words. “What, and I wasn’t doing the same? I just had the good sense to say it first, that’s all.”

Jinyoung bites his lip and whirls on his heel as he’s passing Jaebum to slap him lightly on the chest. He has forgotten so much of it was exposed: the back of his fingers connect to skin with an audible  _ whap!  _ And while the both of them manage to laugh about it, Jinyoung can’t ignore the spark that had ignited. 

“Yah, careful with the merchandise,” Jaebum fake complains, rubbing the spot on his chest that Jinyoung had slapped. He guides Jinyoung out of the entryway and into the main part of the apartment that makes Jinyoung’s jaw drop in awe. 

It’s massive, that’s for sure, and he can certainly see why there’s only two units on a single floor. The small entry hallway opens up into an open floor-plan monolith: the kitchen to their right and a gorgeous dining alcove to the left, complete with a long, solid oak looking dining table. Multiple, wonderfully colorful and fragrant floral centerpieces line the middle of the dark wood. 

Beyond that, a step down, is a sprawling living room that stops at a glass wall overlooking the city. There’s an enclosed balcony, windows slightly edged with winter frost, and a tall space heater hidden in the shadow behind floor to ceiling curtains pushed back to either side. Jaebum’s couch is the exact kind he would have pictured for someone like him, exquisitely black and probably made with some expensive material. Across from that, a low glass coffee table and, across from  _ that,  _ the biggest entertainment system that Jinyoung has ever laid eyes on. Jaebum is barely a few steps down from having his own movie theatre in his house.

“That’s so pretty,” Jinyoung says suddenly, pointing at the sign hanging above the couch on the wall it’s pushed against. Huge, neon letters spell out PARADISE in capital letters and cover the dim living room in a glow of miami vice pink and neon blue. “I’ve never seen that in someone’s house before.”

Almost like he’s embarrassed, Jaebum shrugs. “I’m kind of a sucker for atmosphere.”

“I’ve seen your films, hyung,” he teases, and takes a hesitant step away from Jaebum before stopping. “Um—is it okay if I go look—?”

He watches in quiet awe as Jaebum gets a little nervous. He shifts on his feet, cheeks reddening just a fraction, only it just makes him look more handsome. Alive. Vibrant. The power line between them lies with both eyes open. 

“I—yeah, of course. I want to take you on a tour but I don’t want to seem like, um, I don’t want to show you the bedroom like I’m trying to get you into it, you know—?”

Jinyoung suddenly recalls that day in the trailer when Jaebum had pulled him aside. He had been quite like this when Jinyoung mentioned sex: awkward, fumbling, face tinged pink to the tips of his silver-lined ears. This Jaebum, the present one, fidgets much like the past one had. Jinyoung cracks a smile at him.

“What, so you don’t want to sleep with me?” he jokes, but it had been the wrong thing to say. 

Not because Jaebum looks hurt or offended that he’d said it—that’s not why. It had been the wrong thing to say because Jaebum’s whole demeanor changes from the awkward teenage boy on a first date to the man he’d seen from his place in the crowd at the club: dripping in charisma, all swagger in the shape of his shoulders and the one hand resting on his hip. Cool sharpshooter eyes level Jinyoung with a look that has that proverbial power line roaring to life in the short distance between their bodies. 

All Jaebum says is, “I didn’t say that.”

Of course, what goes unspoken is the clarification: I  _ want  _ to sleep with you.  _ God damn you look good. _

Jinyoung, feeling the roles reversed suddenly, blushes and swallows roughly. “You can still show me around, hyung. I won’t—I won’t misunderstand.”

The air is sharp. Vibrant, like Jaebum had been a few moments ago. Jinyoung watches with his breath slightly held as Jaebum licks his lips and lets out a breath. 

“Yeah. Okay, let me check on the food and then I’ll show you around.”

While Jinyoung waits for him, he busies himself with looking at the framed posters of Jaebum’s films that line the wall next to the long dining table. They’re gorgeously printed in black and white, seeming to fit right into Jaebum’s relatively minimalist decor of the same theme. Black, white, with pops of neon color here and there by way of lights and lamps. Jinyoung finds himself drawn to the beauty of the  _ PARADISE  _ sign hanging above the couch and jumps when Jaebum puts a gentle hand in his lower back. 

That same spark, ignited once more.

“Watch your step, here,” Jaebum murmurs, leading him into the living room. The carpet is thick and cream colored, quieting both their footsteps as Jaebum walks over to the glass window and opens the door. He waves Jinyoung over. “Come here, I want you to see where we’re eating.”

He makes no noise as he passes the massive entertainment system housing Jaebum’s television; it would go up to the ceiling if there wasn’t a mirror situated above it, reflecting the  _ PARADISE  _ sign back and spreading the glow to the other half of the room. As much as he wants to, Jinyoung can’t ignore that the way Jaebum watches him with dark eyes hyper focused on his body as he crosses to the balcony door makes his skin itch with something like desire. 

And the way Jaebum opens the door and his shoulder touches Jaebum’s chest as he leans out to look at the enclosed balcony just makes it worse. Jaebum shows him the lovely little bistro table set out with a tablecloth and centerpiece‘d by a single blood red rose in a thin vase. Candles flicker delicately to light the small space filled with warmth by the heater in the corner. The whole thing screams romance but the only thing on Jinyoung’s mind is the heat of Jaebum’s body against his arm and the dizzying scent of his cologne on his skin. 

“It’s so pretty, hyung,” he murmurs, trying to focus. His heart has started to pound just slightly; Jinyoung can feel the warmth of Jaebum’s gaze on the side of his face as Jinyoung looks out the glass windows to the city far below them. “It’s so, so pretty. You did this for me?”

“Of course,” he says softly, and Jinyoung turns his head to look at him. Crammed together in the balcony doorway there is maybe six inches of space between their faces. Jinyoung’s eyes flick helplessly to Jaebum’s lips: plump, red, and ripe for the kissing like summer strawberries. 

And, of course, Jaebum notices; he’d been doing the same, looking at Jinyoung’s mouth as his tongue passed over the swell of his bottom lip. Jinyoung can hear the creak of the door frame as Jaebum’s fingers tighten on it behind his head. 

“If I kiss you, Jinyoung-ah, then I’m not going to stop.”

His heart beats wildly, now, a horse thundering across the plains. He slides a hand against Jaebum’s hip and considers saying  _ fuck dinner and don’t stop.  _

“I—I wouldn’t let you stop.”

Jaebum’s face is suddenly closer. The damp warmth of his breath tingles Jinyoung’s lips; the line of his straight nose shadows half of his face to a sexy dangerousness that sends Jinyoung’s stomach plummeting. 

“Jinyoung-ah, don’t let me start.”

“What if I want you to?” he whispers, eyes wide, fingers tightening in Jaebum’s shirt. He thinks deliriously that this is it, this is the moment that all other moments have been building up for: Jaebum, kissing him deeply in the doorway of a balcony, then taking him to bed.

But he doesn’t. Jaebum closes his eyes and his eyelashes throw shadows across his cheek where the neon light douses him in pink. He leans forward enough to brush his lips across Jinyoung’s cheek and then seems to peel himself out of the doorway, beckoning for Jinyoung to follow with a crooked smile.

“Dinner first, Mr. Park.”

Jinyoung catches up to him. Feeling a mix of jittery and bold, Jinyoung moves to pass him and trails his fingertips across the exposed skin of Jaebum’s chest. 

“And then what?” he flirts, batting his eyelashes, turning to walk backward toward Jaebum’s bedroom door. He smirks when Jaebum’s throat works in a rough swallow and his eyes flash with that dangerous, razor edge.

Quicker than Jinyoung can follow, Jaebum grabs his wrist and yanks him forward. Their chests collide with a small  _ uff _ leaving Jinyoung’s mouth in surprise and Jaebum’s hands landing possessively on Jinyoung’s waist beneath his trenchcoat. Jinyoung curls his fingers into the loose material of Jaebum’s shirt at his shoulders and full-body shudders when Jaebum leans in to place his lips at Jinyoung’s ear. 

He whispers, “then I’ll take you apart.”

Jinyoung has to try with more willpower than he ever has in his life not to moan and get half hard. Jaebum lets go of him, passing him to open his bedroom door.

“Stand here and look in,” Jaebum says mildly. Jinyoung raises an eyebrow in confusion. “If you really think I’m going to step into this bedroom with you and just ‘show you around’ after holding myself back from fucking you wherever was the closest in my  _ living room _ , you’ve got another thing coming.” He sees Jinyoung’s eyes widen and he swallows as Jaebum laughs softly. “Exactly. But, this is my bedroom.”

Jaebum leaves him in the doorway to look in while he disappears back into the kitchen to check on dinner. Jinyoung is not surprised that Jaebum’s room is just as minimalist and neat as the rest of his place: his bed is quite big, with beautiful white bedclothes sullied only by a brown lump curled up in the dead center. As if seeming to sense Jinyoung’s curious eyes, a cerulean-eyed cat lifts her head to meow pitifully at him before going back to sleep. Jinyoung smiles. 

_ Of course he’s a cat person.  _

The stark black and white of Jaebum’s bedroom is also lit dimly by another neon sign on the wall: this one centered above his bed, throwing a gorgeous deep, jungle green light in the shape of a palm tree. As he’s admiring it, he hears Jaebum approach him from behind. 

“Dinner’s almost ready. Let’s go sit at the table and talk a bit while we wait for it.” 

With a nod Jinyoung closes the door again. He starts to follow Jaebum to the kitchen but on the way back he notices the bookshelf by the television stand housing rows and rows and rows of movies that he hadn’t noticed before. 

“Oh!” he exclaims in surprise. Jaebum turns to look at him and then looks where he’s looking. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

Jaebum seems excited. “Of course not. Here, I’ll show you,” he says, and leads Jinyoung over to the bookcase taller than the both of them. He points to certain places on the shelves and explains, “these are all organized by director, last name first. These down here are my Criterion Collections, organized alphabetically by title.”

Jinyoung laughs, but in an endeared way and certainly not a mean one. “This is so cool, hyung. You’re so cool.” 

Despite being almost thirty, he loves the way Jaebum still blushes like a teenager sometimes. “It’s dorky. I know it is. But I’m passionate about movies, okay?”

He pats Jaebum’s arm in solidarity. “I know, hyung.”

Jaebum quietly just observes as Jinyoung’s eyes scan the shelves. There’s lots of romance films, which both surprises him and doesn’t: he sees movies like The Notebook, Just After Sunset, Chungking Express. He’s also not surprised to see lots of titles he recognizes as action and crime films: Oldboy, Friend, Memories of Murder—

“Hey!” Jinyoung exclaims in pleasant surprise, lips curling in a smile as he reads the spine of Run, Devil. He hooks a finger on the top of the case and pulls it out to face it at Jaebum. “You have my movie.”

“Of course I have your movie,” Jaebum says, smiling back at him. He takes the DVD case from Jinyoung’s hand and turns it over to look at the back, where the plot summary is overlaid a still of Jinyoung holding up a gun, face bloodied. “It’s my favorite movie, remember?”

Jinyoung sighs wistfully and leans his head on the bookcase. “What’s your favorite scene?”

Jaebum’s eyes flick to his for a moment, and then away, nervously, back to the DVD case. “Um, I like all of it.”

He makes a sound with his tongue against his teeth in dissatisfaction. “Aw, c’mon, that’s a cop out. Tell me your favorite scene, hyung!”

Again Jaebum gets a little awkward: his cheeks turn pink and he closes his eyes like what he’s about to say is the most embarrassing thing in the world. He hands the case back to Jinyoung without looking and sighs heavily.

“The—the last one.”

Jinyoung cocks an eyebrow. “The last—?  _ Oh.”  _

The last scene in Jinyoung’s break out film is by far the most important of the movie and the one that he thinks really helped launch him into fame. In it, he plays a male escort who goes undercover with the police when male dancers at his club go missing, in an attempt to bring down the boss of the drug ring attached to the disappearances. Jinyoung spends a large part of the film in various states of undress, but the last scene in the film has Jinyoung practically naked.

Jaebum tilts his head down from where he’d been looking at the ceiling like he hoped it might say something interesting. Jinyoung just looks back at him, their eyes meeting, holding, while electricity crackles in the air and the two of them simultaneously play the scene over in their heads. 

_ Jinyoung, in character, standing at the very back of a long catwalk. There’s a chair at the end in the circular stage part, the pole having been removed by request of the patron. No lights on in the room except for neon beer signs lining both walls: Jinyoung and the stage are dripping with neon reds, yellows, blues. greens. His eyes are smoked out with kohl and his bare skin glitters with powder where it’s visible just barely through the gaps in a fur coat so massive it hangs below his knees.  _

Neither of them have moved.

_ The music is loud, bass heavy and thumping, as Jinyoung slowly makes his way down the catwalk. Dressed in nothing but the smallest and tightest of briefs, the fur coat he’s wearing covers most of him until he’s ready to reveal it. Music pounds its fist against the walls as Jinyoung steps forward, carefully, letting the coat slip down his naked shoulders, and the massive man in the chair at the end of the runway clenches his own fists against his knees.  _

_ The dance is slow. A tease. Jinyoung’s lips are parted sensually as he does a slow turn, dropping the coat further down his arms, to his elbows and exposing the top of his unmarked back. The heat of the room swelters as the music swells and the coat drops to his hips halfway down the catwalk. The man in the chair practically salivating yet having no idea what’s coming to him.  _

_ Jinyoung makes his slow and sexual way down the catwalk, the coat edging lower and lower, past his thighs, revealing the swell of his ass in tight briefs. He reaches the end of the runway and drops the coat to the ground as he climbs in the man’s lap and wraps one arm around his neck to dance.  _

_ The man, beneath the music, makes low noises that they can’t hear. The cops are waiting outside, he knows, for his signal, but he also knows they’ll never get him the way Jinyoung can get him. His fingers walk their way down the man’s heaving chest as his hips roll and they curl knowingly around the butt of the gun the man had left on his hip. _

_ He draws it, quick. The music is swelling to a chorus. Jinyoung places the barrel of the sleek, black gun glowing neon in the reflections from the lights directly over the man’s heart. He leans in, lips to his ear, and the soundtrack stops.  _

Bang,  _ Jinyoung whispers in the dead silence. The screen goes black for a moment before a shot rings out and then the credits roll. _

The recollection of the scene had maybe taken them both a minute, maybe two. But the tension has now pulled itself tighter than a tripwire and Jinyoung knows the first person to step into it will set the dominoes to falling. 

Jinyoung swallows hard. “That—that’s your favorite scene?”

“It's the lighting,” Jaebum whispers hoarsely, and Jinyoung is so surprised that he bursts out laughing. Jaebum turns an indignant shade of red and sputters a defense, “it—it is! The lighting, the soundtrack, the one continuous shot—all of it! That’s why it’s my favorite, okay?!” 

He stops laughing long enough to pat Jaebum on the shoulder. He still feels the tension pulled tightly around his gut, especially when Jaebum looks at him and bites his lip, but he can at least use this as a distraction. “I believe you, hyung.”

Jaebum visibly relaxes. “Christ. Can we just—go sit at the table for a minute? I need to put dinner in the oven but it only needs to cook for fifteen minutes. Then we can sit down on the balcony and eat. Okay?”

He looks chagrined but Jinyoung thinks there’s the smallest hint of satisfaction there, too, especially when Jinyoung nods. He leads them into the kitchen and pulls out a chair for Jinyoung to sit in while he goes into the open kitchen to finish dinner. 

No longer faced directly with both of their warring desire and run through with sharp sexual tension, Jinyoung finds he can relax a bit into the high backed wood chair and admire Jaebum with his chin in his hand. He looks unfairly handsome tonight, as he always does, but Jinyoung thinks there’s something so special about seeing him in his element like this. Relaxed (except for when they’re having some kind of weird, horny stand-off), happy, sort of nervous around the edges. He moves naturally in the kitchen as he cooks, too, looking for all the world like a professional chef and not one of the generation’s best and brightest filmmakers. 

And it’s the private part of him that Jinyoung had been so desperate to see since he first found Jaebum and his work. This side of him, the one who sings beautifully under his breath as he opens a gorgeous modern stove and blinks into the blast of heat. This Jaebum, the private one, hidden away from the harshness of a world that hates him for being gay, hates him for being famous, loves him only for being both. The Jaebum that he is when the door is closed between himself and the world at large, small happinesses presses into the corners of his smile when he turns and catches Jinyoung looking. 

“I can feel you staring a hole in my back.” 

“Mm,” Jinyoung hums. Jaebum sets a timer shaped like a chicken and comes over to him, standing in front of Jinyoung’s chair and looking down at him. Jinyoung keeps his chin in his hand as he looks up at Jaebum dreamily. “Now you know how it feels.” 

Gently, Jaebum’s fingers touch his temple before they slot in his hair and card through the silky strands and tucks them behind his ear. Jinyoung’s eyes close in relaxation as Jaebum repeats the gesture and laughs softly. 

“I do that a lot, huh?”

Jinyoung opens his eyes to look back into Jaebum’s face, heart skipping at the utter admiration he sees so plainly displayed. 

“When I first met you, it was all I could feel. Your eyes burning a hole through the center of me wherever I went.”

Jaebum’s smile is crooked, handsome, heartbreakingly real. “You’re all I can look at, ever since you showed up.”

He makes a noise against his teeth in playful disgust and laments silently when Jaebum pulls his hand away to sit down. “Yah, I never expected you to be so cheesy.”

“Surprised?”

“A bit.” 

Jaebum unconsciously mirrors him; he sets his elbow on the table and rests his chin in his hand and watches Jinyoung with fondness. He hums. 

“Why?” 

He laughs a little, leaning back to slump comfortably in the chair. “Really? He asks with a smile. “You were so--you were so cold. I’m sure you know that, don’t you?” 

“Yeah.” Jaebum nods; sighs a little. “I remember that night you came to see me at the club. Or, well, saw me  _ at  _ the club. I don’t think you knew I was there initially.”

“I didn’t,” he says, remembering that same night with a crooked smile. “I remember being so nervous to approach you, but knowing you were there--I felt like I had to say something. So I did, but god--” Jinyoung shudders theatrically and laughs. “You just  _ looked  _ at me. It shook me to the core, you know.”

Jaebum cocks an eyebrow. “How so?” 

“You looked like you were going to eat me alive, hyung.”

There’s a moment of silence between them, as though Jaebum is weighing the options of his response and the consequence of what he might choose. He drums his fingertips against his cheek and holds Jinyoung’s eyes.

“That’s because I was thinking about it.”

“Even then?” Jinyoung asks, surprised. The way he’d walked away feeling that night--as though Jaebum had just burned a hole right through him with his glassy eyes. Like he was seeing something that wasn’t really there, and only the intensity remained.

Jaebum licks his lips. “From the moment you stepped on stage to audition.”

Is it a confession? It kind of feels like one with the way they’re looking at each other after he says it, heavy eyes and intention permeating the air. If it is, Jinyoung sort of feels like he needs to even the score.

_ Are you going to tell him about Taegun? _

_ I don’t know. If it’s relevant, I guess I’ll mention it. _

_ You don’t think it’s worth sharing that part of your history with him? _

Maybe the moment is wrong. Maybe Jinyoung should wait for a better time, like when the two of them aren’t doing this dance around the obvious way they want to shed each other’s clothes, but the invisible scale in Jinyoung’s hands feel vastly uneven. Jaebum, the one who had once been so immovable, untouchable, colder than a planet of ice, had given up so much of himself so easily for Jinyoung. And he did so without being asked: Jaebum, though he hasn’t said so, has seemed to understand inherently the necessity in sharing himself with Jinyoung if they have any intention of breathing life into this, whatever  _ this  _ is. Jinyoung realizes that he should do the same. Jaebum shouldn’t have to ask. 

So, without any kind of decorum or, really, any relevance, Jinyoung just blurts it out:

“In college I was sleeping one of the assistant heads of my department and he hurt me so badly that it made me question everything about myself and my desire to act.”

Jaebum doesn’t react right away; he furrows his brows a bit and blinks at him. He doesn’t say anything for a moment and his lack of immediate response sends panic signals to Jinyoung’s brain.

_ Did I just fuck this up?  _

Jaebum opens his mouth to say something. “Um--”

“I’m sorry,” Jinyoung interrupts, sitting up straight. “I just--it feels like we’re making all these confessions lately, right?” he laughs uneasily and Jaebum’s look of concern deepens. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I just wanted to--I wanted to give you a part of my past, too, you know? I have ghosts. The things he said to me--they’ve followed me ever since. They never went away. Every time I tried out for something, every time I had an interaction with a director or someone high up in the industry, I heard his voice in my head telling me that I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, or that I was mistaking attractiveness for talent.”

“Is that what he said to you?” Jaebum asks, and the disgust in his voice is audible. 

Jinyoung nods. “Yeah. And I try to, you know, ignore it, or whatever. But I was young, then, and those kinds of things hurt the worst when you’re that age, I guess. Like he knew just where to cripple me so that I’d keep relying on him, but for him it was just about fucking me in his office. It was so much more than that for me--I promised myself that I’d never mistake attention for love again, either. And then you came along, and--” he realizes that this is  _ dangerously  _ close to the sort of confession that he doesn’t want to be making in the midst of airing his dirty laundry; he’s not sure that he wants to confess that to Jaebum at all. He swallows and redirects his thoughts: “I just… I was so desperate to impress him. And I’m so desperate to impress you.”

He doesn’t necessarily  _ mean  _ to say that very last thing, but when it leaves his mouth, he’s not regretful that he said it. It’s the truth, after all: they had all known it. Taecyeon knew it, Yugyeom knew it, he knew it. He knew that his only shot he had at the kind of fame he dreamed of was the day he climbed the small stairs to that even smaller stage to make a good first impression on Im Jaebum and he was only going to get one chance at it. And then he’d gotten the role, and he’d realized with fervor that he was going to have to work overtime to do this right. That, even more so than focusing on what the film meant, he was hyper focused on impressing the one person he thought he’d never be able to in a thousand years. 

He desperately wants Jaebum to say something. Jaebum is just looking at him with one of those faces that only Jaebum can make: a cocktail of emotions that Jinyoung just can’t separate from one another, so many things mixed together, beautiful and awful all at once. Jinyoung shifts like he’s going to say something but before he can, Jaebum is standing up out of his chair and bending down in front of Jinyoung’s to kiss him sweetly on the mouth.

“Stop trying,” Jaebum murmurs, hand on the back of Jinyoung’s neck and his lips at the corner of Jinyoungs’. “You got me.” 

Jinyoung goes to kiss him back; he tangles his fingers in Jaebum’s silky hair and parts his lips for Jaebum to kiss him deeper, but the timer in the kitchen starts clucking and the both of them break apart with noises of surprise. 

“Dammit,” Jaebum sighs, clearly disappointed. Jinyoung smiles and watches him go back into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. 

“Seems like the universe  _ really  _ doesn’t want you to kiss me.”

“A good thing, probably,” Jaebum says without looking up, busy carefully plating some delicious smelling pasta dish and pouring two glasses of dark wine. “I said if I started I wasn’t going to stop.”

Jinyoung sighs wistfully. “Yeah. I had no plans to stop you.” 

Jaebum looks up at him with a  _ you’re really not helpful  _ look and grins when Jinyoung laughs.

“Come grab this wine, will you?” he asks, beckoning Jinyoung over with a jerk of his head. “I’ll carry the food out if you’ll grab those.”

“Do I need to grab utensils?” Jinyoung stands up and moves around him in the kitchen, grabbing both glasses of wine by their delicate stems and following Jaebum when he heads through the living room toward the glass door of the balcony. 

It’s not lost on him how... _ domestic  _ the whole thing is, but he tucks it away and decides to enjoy it in secret. 

“No, the table is set already,” and Jaebum pauses to turn, pushing the door handle down with an elbow, mischievous smile on his face as he shoulders the glass door open. “Spill those on this carpet and you die.”

“Like you’d ever have the balls to kill someone this good looking.”

With a sighed agreement of  _ yeah, you’re right,  _ Jaebum sets the plates down on their respective placemats and, like a true gentleman, pulls Jinyoung’s seat out for him. Jaebum sits down to make himself comfortable, relighting a few of the candles that had gone out with a long necked lighter he’d picked up off a small end table behind him. Jinyoung looks around, taking it all in.

All the gorgeous, jungle-green plants decorating the enclosed space let off a lovely fragrance as well as a surprising amount of humid heat. They’re just up high enough from the city that the lights below them offer a subtle glow through the window panes, but it’s dark enough that the candles on the table and some of the ledges around them give most of the space its romantic, dim light. Jinyoung thinks it’s almost unfair how romantic this is, actually, all flickering white candles and white tablecloth and handsome, handsome man sitting across from him at the little table and watching him with his eyes like his own private universes. The warm aroma of the pasta wafts up and fills his nose, but the only thing he can think about as he looks back at Jaebum over the top of the single red rose between them on the table is the way his cologne smells on his skin and Jinyoung falls in love over and over again. 

All of his images of Jaebum that he wanted to keep, the ones he had convinced himself that he had to write over because he was only allowed to keep one, none of them compare to this. The photo album of Jinyoung’s heart stores all of those images on their own pages, with this on the cover: Jaebum, dressed all in black, disrupted only by the red of a rose. 

“Are you going to eat, or stare at me all night?” 

It’s just a tease, and Jinyoung even smiles at it. But he takes a deep breath and answers him anyway.

“Hyung, I think I could look at you for the rest of my life.”

Jaebum, who had already started shoving a forkful of pasta into his mouth, coughs in surprise and has to slap at his chest with wide eyes before washing it down with wine. Jinyoung feels his face turn red on his cheeks and temples and looks away, unsure if he’s finally said too much.

“And you accused  _ me  _ of being cheesy,” Jaebum warbles in mock disgust, and Jinyoung’s smile returns. He doesn’t dignify Jaebum with a response and takes a bite of his dinner instead.

As they eat, he finds that their conversation flows quite naturally. One subject leads into another seamlessly, and after a while Jinyoung feels like they’ve known each other for much longer than they have. Maybe he feels this way because of how much he’d watched Jaebum’s interviews in college and ever since, but… it’s different. There are some things Jaebum tells him that he’d already known from interviews that Jaebum has given, but there’s a different quality to the way that he tells Jinyoung these things: it’s in the animation of him, his wide, sparkling eyes and sharp curves of his mouth. The way he moves his delicate hands when he talks, and the exaggerated noises he makes with his mouth. And he realizes, eyes crinkling with a smile that he hides with a sip of wine, that this Jaebum is just  _ alive.  _

Time, for them, passes wonderfully slow. They finish their dinners and Jaebum shyly asks if he wants dessert; he had prepared some, but wasn’t sure if Jinyoung would have stayed that long or if he even liked sweet things. Jinyoung’s heart does cartwheels when he agrees to dessert, and their glasses of wine seem to empty and get refilled like magic.

He returns a few minutes later with homemade yoghurt; Jinyoung listens with his heart thumping happily away in his chest as Jaebum goes into this long spiel about how his mom makes it and it’s the best thing on earth. He’s inclined to agree: paired with the dark wine, Jinyoung also admits that it’s the best damn thing on earth, and Jaebum is really pushing for second. He laughs, head tipped back, mouth open and throat bared. Jinyoung doesn’t think he’d ever get tired of hearing it. 

The both of them are so preoccupied with each other that neither of them notice the door, which had been propped open just a bit, widen as something passes through. Jinyoung covers his mouth with his hand as he laughs at an awful joke Jaebum had made, trying to resist the urge to get out of his seat and punch him in the arm for it, eyes nearly closed.

“You’re such an idiot, you’re so lucky I’m not going to tell anybody--”

Beneath the table, something warm and alive brushes heavily against Jinyoung’s ankle. A loud and sudden meow that Jinyoung hadn’t been expecting scares him into sending both knees against the bottom of the table and his wine glass wobbling dangerously. Jaebum, also surprised, widens his eyes and seems to realize what’s happening right when it’s too late to stop it.

Jaebum’s cat, having passed completely beneath the table and out of the line of fire, just meows pitifully again when Jaebum doesn’t look at her. He jumps to his feet and tries to catch Jinyoung’s wine glass before it topples, but his knees had hit the table too hard and the glass crashes against the tablecloth, stem just out of Jaebum’s reach. Cold wine, berry red, goes splashing off the edge and douses the front of Jinyoung’s clothes.

He looks down in a mixture of horror and embarrassment at the dark wine that soaks into the perfect white of his turtleneck sweater and seeps into the fabric of his jeans. Thankfully, he had the good sense to remove his trenchcoat earlier, and is relieved that at least one piece of his clothing is safely stored over the back of a chair inside Jaebum’s apartment. It seems like his snowy white sweater was not going to get that luxury. 

“Oh, my god,” Jaebum says, sounding breathless, and Jinyoung is still so shocked to see all the spilled wine in his lap like a bloodstain that he doesn’t even look up. “I’m so fucking sorry--”

“I forgot you had a cat,” Jinyoung says robotically, slowly moving his arms down and plucking at the ruined material of his sweater between two fingertips. “Like, I saw her in your room earlier and just totally forgot. She scared the shit out of me.”

“I thought she’d just sleep the whole time since she’s so lazy, so I opened the bedroom door for her in case she wanted to come say hi or something later, and she never comes out here--” Jaebum sounds genuinely devastated, so much so that Jinyoung actually looks up at him this time.

His face is wrecked. In fact, it sort of looks like he’s going to  _ cry,  _ which seems like a vast overreaction on both of their parts. He glances at the cat, perched in the soil of a potted plant to their left, who is just watching the whole thing with an expression of  _ okay, so what?  _ So annoyingly catlike that Jinyoung almost laughs.

He nods at her. “Looks like she came to say hi after all.”

Jaebum looks at the cat helplessly. “Why are you such an asshole?”

This  _ does  _ make him laugh. “Hyung,” he says gently, grimacing at the feeling of his wet sweater against his bare stomach. “It’s okay. Really.”

“It’s  _ not,”  _ he laments miserably, looking like Jinyoung had just told him that the cat pissed in his drink or something instead of just scaring him into knocking it over.  Jaebum picks up the cat and holds her away from his body like she’s made of dynamite and starts to go back inside. “Just--just wait right here, okay? I’m going to put her in the guest bathroom and bring you a towel.”

Jinyoung just remains in his seat, quietly contemplating what this means. He realizes that, while the night hasn’t been  _ ruined  _ per se, because he doesn’t think anything short of someone dying or them ending it would ruin a night like this, he does realize that it’s  _ over.  _ As much as he’d like to stay here all night, the wine soaking his sweater is already feeling gross and uncomfortable against his belly and the dampness of the denim all over his thighs and crotch will chafe uncomfortably if he lets it sit. He sighs miserably. 

Which is, of course, the moment Jaebum steps back through the doorway holding a couple of old towels. He hears the sound Jinyoung makes and Jinyoung’s own heart tugs at the way Jaebum’s face falls. Like it’s Jaebum’s fault, somehow, and he further proves his point by dropping to one knee by Jinyoung’s chair to place one towers the concrete to soak up the wine there and pressing the other one to Jinyoung’s lap. He thinks that, instinctively, they both know it’s not going to help: the sweater is ruined by the wine stain and probably his pants, too.

Jaebum looks  _ miserable.  _ Jinyoung remembers the way he’d been smiling and laughing not even ten minutes ago and wishes that would come back.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Jinyoung,” he says again, voice thick. He keeps pressing one hand against the low part of Jinyoung’s stomach just over the waistband of his jeans like the towel under it is going to somehow magically soak up the wine while he keeps his ashamed gaze on cleaning the floor. 

Jinyoung, realizing that Jaebum really is blaming himself, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hyung. Stop it. I’m not mad at you, or even at the cat.”

This time, Jaebum looks up at him, strands of hair falling across his forehead and into his eyes. He stops cleaning and asks, “then why do you look so upset?”

Does he? He hadn’t intended to, but he guesses that it makes sense his face would give away the feeling in his heart without him realizing it. He looks down forlornly at where he can see the edges of the stain on his clothes around the edges of the towel and sighs.

“Because--I don’t want to leave just because I spilled some wine on myself.” He looks back at Jaebum, who is still watching him, knelt by his chair and head tipped back to look up at him. Jinyoung bites his lower lip.

“Hyung, I just don’t want to  _ leave.”  _

Jaebum just keeps staring. And staring. The wine has seemed to be totally forgotten as they look at each other, the weight of Jinyoung’s words coming down on the both of them like a closed fist: 

_ I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here all night with you. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave.  _

Flickering candlelight falls across Jaebum’s face, shadows dancing, face shadowed and then illuminated. The city below them glows against the outline of him, too, this black and silver being tinged with golden light. Jinyoung realizes in this moment that Jaebum is neither the angel in the stained glass or the sword, but both at once. 

How wonderful it is, to fall in love with something so heavenly. And so dangerous, too.

Jaebum swallows. “You can--I have a washer and dryer, you know. You can--you can borrow some of my clothes, if you want, while we wash them. We can stay up until they’re done even if it’s late, and, um--they’ll be big on you, but--”

He puts a hand on Jaebum’s neck, and the spark, this time, ignites a tiny flame.

By way of agreement, “just show me what to wear, hyung,” is all he says.

  
  
  


Now that he’s standing in the middle of Jaebum’s bedroom, he’s astounded at how big it actually is. 

He’d really only looked inside for a moment, and hadn’t really gotten to admire it: now he does, head turning this way and that to look at everything while Jaebum rifles through his closet with the door open. The neon palm tree above the bed hums near silently, amplified by the silence of the rest of the room punctuated only by the sound of Jaebum looking through dresser drawers and shoving them shut. The desk that he hadn’t noticed before houses a massive, almost intimidating looking flat monitor: the thing is damn expensive, he’s sure, and the size of it throws half his reflection and the reflection of the tree down onto the desk where the green glow buzzes against the crisp, unmarked white.

The bathroom door is open, too, and though the lights are off, the tree gives off enough glow in the room to highlight the fact that Jaebum also has a stand alone tub, and one that is infinitely cooler looking than Jinyoung’s.

“Yah, hyung, even your bathtub is better than mine,” he sighs, wondering how mad Taecyeon would be if he asked to remodel the bathroom again. Probably very.

Finally, after digging around in his closet for over five minutes, Jaebum comes back out with a stack of folded clothes in his hands and a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Okay, I tried to find some older things--things that might fit a little better, um,” Jaebum nervously avoids Jinyoung’s eyes as he lifts things off the stack. What had he said earlier?

_ If you really think I’m going to step into this bedroom with you and just ‘show you around’ after holding myself back from fucking you wherever was the closest in my  _ living room _ , you’ve got another thing coming. _

Right. Jinyoung wonders how true that statement still is, but doesn’t ask.

“It’s mostly just, um, a shirt and boxer briefs, if that’s okay, I really don’t think any of my pants would fit.”

Jinyoung takes the stack graciously and tests the waters with a half-joke.

“I’m more of a briefs guy, but they’ll do.”

He’s delighted when the blush on Jaebum’s face deepens almost to scarlet and colors the tips of his ears as he closes his eyes and takes a deep, deep breath.

Seeming to center himself, Jaebum opens his eyes but the flush remains. He pats the top of the stack and says,

“The shirt is going to be way too big, I’m sure, but,” he shrugs. He tries to say the follow up casually but his breath sort of catches and Jinyoung really, really wishes he wasn’t wearing wine soaked clothes so that he could just kiss Jaebum into the floor. “It’ll be cute.”

Jinyoung feels a blush of his own starting, but he just nods and shifts on his socked feet when Jaebum doesn’t move. Neither of them move for a moment, just looking at each other, then at the clothes, then at each other again, and then away. Rinse, repeat, until Jinyoung curls his mouth at the corner into a sly smile and gently shakes the clothes at him.

“Are you going to leave the room so I can change into these?” 

He had thought that Jaebum’s face couldn’t get any redder than it already is, but somehow it gets impossibly more so and spreads down his neck to visibly pink his chest. Jaebum turns his head and coughs awkwardly, mumbling something under his breath that sounds like  _ I’ll be on the couch if you need me  _ and then seems to swear at himself as he leaves the room and shuts the door behind him.

Giddiness rushes through the length of Jinyoung’s body, head to toe, goosebumps erupting all over. Pure, unadulterated giddiness. 

As he peels off his damp clothes and folds them stain-side in to avoid getting on any of Jaebum’s meticulously clean furniture, he wonders if taking too long will make Jaebum suspicious or anxious about what exactly he’s doing in here. He wouldn’t consider it a tease or anything, but--the thought certainly crosses his mind, and he quickly stamps it out as he pulls the underwear Jaebum had given up to his hips and tries not to laugh at how tight they are on him.

The shirt, as expected, is much too big for him. In fact, it’s wildly too large for Jaebum, too, and he wonders what the point of dressing like a circus tent must be, because it doesn’t seem exactly  _ fashionable.  _ Of course, he’s seen the lazy, college-esque way that Jaebum dresses for clubbing and some shoots, but tonight has proven that he’s also incredibly fashionable. The shirt the size of a Vespa cover strongly contradicts this. 

He picks up the stack of his own clothes off the floor now that he’s dressed in Jaebum’s and wonders awkwardly where to put them: Jaebum hadn’t mentioned where his washing machine was, and he feels too awkward to parade them into the living room to ask. He sees Jaebum’s dresser inside his closet where Jaebum had left the door open and decides to set them on top of it until he can go out and ask Jaebum exactly where he’d like Jinyoung to toss them. 

The neon lighting aesthetic continues on a smaller scale in the closet; it seems like there’s no actual light in here at all, and Jinyoung would normally find it overkill but, because it’s Jaebum, who has seemingly organized every article of clothing he owns into some sort of category in different sections of an unfairly large walk in closet, he finds himself thinking that it’s actually pretty charming. He puts his clothes down on the dresser and turns to leave but is stopped by a hulking shape half hidden behind the open door.

It’s a massive fur coat, almost comically oversized. It wouldn’t fit him and it wouldn’t fit Jaebum; it  _ also  _ looks like it could potentially cover a small motorbike, and Jinyoung has to wonder what Jaebum’s obsession with clothes nine sizes too big is. He closes the door a little bit to get a better look at it: the harsh red neon light in the dark closet nearly bleaches all the color out of it, but by the way it seems to halo around each of the little fuzzy, synthetic hairs he thinks it must be an eye blistering neon of some sort. Probably yellow, by the looks of it. In fact, as Jinyoung pushes the clothes hanging next to it back to get a better look at it, he thinks it actually looks quite close to the coat he wore in the last scene of Run, Devil. 

He runs his fingers down the material, not quite coarse and not quite soft. 

_ And then what? _

_ Then I’ll take you apart. _

The whispered memory of the way Jaebum had said it slams into him like a freight train. Then,

_ What’s your favorite scene? _

An idea occurs to him, a devilish one, as well as one that is potentially very stupid. Jaebum is either going to react positively to Jinyoung materializing in the living room shrouded in this monstrosity of a coat, or he’s going to react poorly, and the prospect of his reaction being negative is almost enough to have Jinyoung pushing all the clothes around it back into place. 

But not enough.

Heart thumping against his ribs, he yanks the coat off the hanger and nearly puts his eye out when it comes bouncing off the bar. It slaps the door and he winces at the sound: he’s sure that Jaebum heard it, and if the silence wasn’t suspicious,  _ that _ probably was. If Jinyoung wants to get the jump on Jaebum and surprise him by walking out in this coat with his hips swaying the way they did in his movie then he better stop fucking around in the closet. 

He exits quickly, not bothering to shut either of the doors as he steps back out into the hallway. All he has to do is turn the corner and Jaebum will be able to see him out of the corner of his eye. Jinyoung’s heart starts pumping nervous adrenaline into his body so quickly he can feel his hands trembling as he pulls the coat tighter around his shoulders and lets it brush across the tops of his knees.

“Hey, hyung!” 

Jaebum turns his head at the same moment Jinyoung comes around the corner, sauntering around the arm of the couch. Jinyoung can feel the exact moment it registers to him that Jinyoung is standing across from him on the other side of the glass table with a massive neon fur coat pulled around his shoulders, doused in pink and blue light.

In the silence, the way Jaebum swallows hard is nearly audible. The heartbeat in his ears nearly drowns out the way Jaebum’s breath catches when he tries to say something, but the sound is just loud enough to spark a low burn in Jinyoung’s belly. He’s had enough of the teasing, the dancing around, their direct-but-careful avoidance of the fact that the powerline of lust running between them has absolutely screamed itself awake. They’ve had their dinner, their sweet dessert; Jinyoung’s mouth still tastes like wine. The night is young yet and the way Jaebum is looking at him drenched in neon light feels quite like paradise, indeed.

Jinyoung tilts his head, curls his mouth in a sly smile. 

“Would you like to see the director’s cut of this scene, Director Im?” 

His reaction is more than Jinyoung could have ever hoped for: all he can manage is a low whimper and a nod.

Excitement chases through him and Jinyoung makes quick work of the lights: all the main overheads get turned off, the entire apartment now dark with the curtains drawn and lit to glowing from Jaebum’s neon paradise sign over their heads. The atmosphere between them that has swung from side to side like a pendulum over the course of the night has finally seemed to stick and settle in the heavy one, both of them wound tight like coiled springs.

“You know the song that plays during this scene, don’t you?” Jinyoung asks, hoping like hell that he does, if not to make this more of a wet dream come true for Jaebum. 

Jaebum tries to answer and has to swallow again before his voice actually seems to work. “Yeah, of course I do.”

Jinyoung pulls the coat around his shoulders. “Put it on, then.”

It’s almost comedic how fast Jaebum moves: his phone, sitting dark on the table, is immediately in his hand and his music library pulled up as he goes over to the stereo. Jinyoung just watches him as his hands shake a little in an anticipation that Jinyoung is also feeling as he plugs it into the base and cranks the dial. 

The song starts immediately. Jaebum hits the repeat one button; Jinyoung wonders just how many times he thinks they’re going to get through this song before they either forget it’s even playing or abandon the living room altogether and stumble their way into his bedroom. Nevertheless, the bass from Jaebum’s speakers vibrates a little in his chest, drowning the room in sound the way he thinks it would have done in the scene had it been real.

Jaebum straightens and just looks at him, eyes dark and mysterious, but the working of his adam’s apple gives his nervousness away. Jinyoung smiles but doesn’t step closer. 

“Sit down, hyung.”

He obeys, a puppet on strings. Jinyoung waits for Jaebum to get comfortable in the middle of the couch: he settles heavily against the back of it, looking tense even from where Jinyoung is standing like if Jinyoung touched him right this moment he’d shatter apart. The shine in his eyes is visible even where Jinyoung starts to sway in place from across the table, and he watches with that glow warming up in his stomach as Jaebum’s legs spread on the couch of their own accord.

The music pulses in Jinyoung’s blood, guiding his body easily, moving almost mindlessly while Jaebum watches him from the couch. He’s careful to keep the coat pulled tight around him for now, not wanting to reveal what’s underneath so soon; it would be sexier, he’s sure, if he wasn’t wearing anything underneath it like he had done in the film, but there’s an added element to the intensity of it knowing that he’s wearing one of Jaebum’s shirts underneath it and that he’ll have to strip that off, too. 

His hips sway, lip pulled between his teeth. Jaebum’s eyes are glued to him, flicking back and forth between his hips, hands, and face like he just can’t decide where to look when Jinyoung steps closer to the table and loosens his grip a bit on the coat. It doesn’t quite fall away, not yet, but it’s more open around his neck and the loose collar of Jaebum’s giant shirt underneath gives him the first glimpse of an unmarked collarbone where the shirt slips toward one shoulder. 

Jinyoung turns, hips still swaying but a little faster now, and looks at Jaebum from over his exposed shoulder. He drops the coat a little: not enough to reveal too much, but he lets it bunch around the tops of his arms, the hem brushing under his knees and the backs of his calves now. Jaebum’s face seems to tighten with a want so visible Jinyoung could touch it if he tried, and he wonders, as he drops the coat a little lower to his elbows and steps around the table to sway his hips between Jaebum’s spread knees, how long he can even last when Jaebum is looking at him like this. 

Closer now, looking down at him, he thinks of how unfair it is that Jaebum looks handsome even like this: sweat has started to gather at his temples and plaster the dark strands of hair there, and there’s visible sweat on his neck where it’s stretched with his head tilted back. Jinyoung swallows the noise he wants to make when Jaebum’s eyes trail a hot line down the length of his body and fists his hands on the material of the couch when Jinyoung drops the coat down to his wrists. The muscle underneath Jaebum’s ear at his jaw knots tightly as he grits his teeth. There’s something so... _ hot  _ about the helpless way Jaebum is watching him, like Jinyoung is some breakable thing that will shatter apart, too, if he touches it. Jinyoung, wound just as tight as he lets the coat drop to his hips and he steps further into the open V of Jaebum’s leg, thinks that he just might.

He hears Jaebum sigh softly under the music as the whisper of the coat hitting the floor when Jinyoung drops it off his wrists is buried beneath both. Finally shed of the bulk of it and now rocking his hips wearing only Jaebum’s clothes, he thinks that, despite the closeness of the coat to the film, the sight of him in only Jaebum’s clothes awakens some other part of him. The sweat on Jaebum’s neck glows pink beneath the light and Jinyoung watches it with thirst springing to life in the yawning open pit of desire that his stomach has become as it rolls down his throat and down the center of his chest. 

Playfully, Jinyoung grabs the hem of Jaebum’s oversized shirt at his thighs and pulls it up to the waistband of his boxer briefs like he’s going to take it off; he doesn’t miss the way Jaebum’s eyes flick down to see that Jinyoung is half hard just from teasing him and the way he has to close his eyes for a moment as if to collect his thoughts. But Jinyoung drops the hem of the shirt, biting his lip on a smile when Jaebum audibly whines and digs his fingertips helplessly into the flat material of the couch. 

As much as Jaebum can’t take not touching him, Jinyoung can no longer stand not touching  _ him,  _ and he aches to feel the way Jaebum’s body reacts to his touch. Jinyoung, with little brava, bends slowly at the waist to put one hand on the back of the couch on either side of Jaebum’s head with his elbows locked. Their eyes haven’t broken contact, yet, and he doesn’t want them to: the dimness of the room and the intensity of Jaebum’s desire has the iris swallowed by the full dark of Jaebum’s pupils. Jinyoung takes his sweet time putting his weight on one knee to the couch at Jaebum’s left hip, and then the right. He settles with the weight of his ass on Jaebum’s lap and can feel almost immediately through the material of Jaebum’s jeans that he’s completely hard, just from this. 

This close now, faces just inches apart and chests nearly brushing with every labored breath, Jinyoung can see the sign over their heads reflected in the bottomless depth of Jaebum’s black eyes with perfect clarity.  _ PARADISE.  _

He keeps his elbows locked as he starts to roll his hips. The shirt Jaebum had given him pools around his thighs, obscuring much of his shape, and he debates on whether he wants to take it off himself or if, just for a moment, it would be okay for Jaebum to touch him and take it off instead. One hand slips from the couch to slide down Jaebum’s chest; half over shirt, half over skin, and Jinyoung would rip it the rest of the way open if he was sure it wasn’t expensive. Instead, he bites back a whine at the way Jaebum’s eyes roll back as Jinyoung’s hand trails down the rest of his chest to his belt where he lifts it away to grab the bottom of his shirt. 

“Wait,” Jaebum pants, and the breathless quality of his voice has desire stabbing Jinyoung through low in his gut. Jaebum’s hands land on his hips and, no longer able to resist, Jinyoung fists a hand in the material of his shirt to yank him up for a kiss. 

Their lips meet hard and fast. Jinyoung’s lips are already parted and Jaebum wastes no time sticking his tongue in his mouth, moaning openly when Jinyoung rolls his hips down harder in his lap against his cock. He whines at the feeling of it, already feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the sensation: Jaebum hard in his jeans, the wet heat of his mouth against his own, and his hands as they work their way underneath the hem of the shirt and slide up his bare back. The higher he goes the more the shirt bunches at his wrists and down his forearms, until he’s nudging Jinyoung’s elbows with his arms so that he’ll lift them over his head. 

They break apart with twin gasps as Jaebum pulls the shirt off over Jinyoung’s head. Jaebum tries to lean back up to keep kissing him, but Jinyoung just gives him a lopsided grin and pushes him back against the couch cushions a little roughly with a hand to his chest. The pendant sways back and forth before Jaebum reaches up to yank it off and throw it somewhere to the floor. Jinyoung would normally have something to say about tossing something so beautiful so carelessly, but the aggressive way he does it and then tries to put his hands back on Jinyoung’s now-bare waist is so much hotter than it has any right to be. Especially now that the view of his chest through the shirt is mostly unobstructed.

Instead of letting Jaebum touch him, though, he grabs both wrists and pushes back, pinning them to the back of the couch with a grin as he grinds his hips down hard. Jaebum looks shocked for a moment before the weight of Jinyoung’s ass shifting in his lap and along the hard length of his cock in his jeans has him throwing his head back. Sweat tracks its way along the edge of his jaw and down his neck in streaks of pink and blue so fucking tantalizing that Jinyoung wants to drink it. 

_ “Fuck,  _ Jinyoung,” Jaebum moans, adam’s apple straining against the skin of his bared neck. Jinyoung lets go of one wrist to roughly grab his jaw and bring his head back down--the control that Jaebum has let Jinyoung exert over him has maybe gone to his head a little bit, but by the way he feels Jaebum’s dick twitch underneath him, he thinks he likes it.

“Shouldn’t you be paying attention, Mr. Im?” he purrs, and despite being forced to look at him, Jaebum still rolls his eyes back in his head and makes a noise so dirty and sinful that, if Jinyoung wasn’t already hard and straining against the fabric of Jaebum’s boxer briefs, that alone would have done him in. With Jaebum so pliant and needy and bent to his will like this, Jinyoung honestly doesn’t know how much longer he  _ himself  _ is going to last.

He continues rolling his hips, the need in both of them ratcheting up higher and higher with each shift. Jaebum looks like he’s going crazy not being able to touch him: Jinyoung can see the anxious way his fingers curl and uncurl into a fist both where he’s got an elbow locked at his side and the other flexing beneath Jinyoung’s grip where it’s still pinned to the couch. Every noise, every swallowed gasp and uttered swear that drops from between Jaebum’s saliva-slicked lips is like another punch in the stomach. Every place their bodies touch, a raw nerve, burning, aching, with a lust so strong he can taste it like coppery blood in his mouth. Jinyoung thinks fleetingly of how hot his body had burned when Jaebum was watching across the room. Now, mostly naked in Jaebum’s lap and holding him down while he all but rides his cock over his jeans, he has turned into a pyre.

“You’re-- _ fuck, Jinyoung-- _ you’re really not going to let me--oh--kiss you?” 

Jinyoung wants that more than anything, actually: he’s never felt anything like the way he feels when Jaebum’s mouth is on his, especially like this, still tasting faintly of sharp berry wine and strawberries. But the control, the way Jaebum who was always so in control of every single little aspect of how he felt and spoke and moved has totally given it to him, allowed Jinyoung to throw him over, drives Jinyoung closer and closer to his own edge. He wouldn’t be surprised if he came from this, either of them, just from grinding in Jaebum’s lap and watching him lose himself to the feeling of it. 

He lets go of Jaebum’s wrist to put a single finger to Jaebum’s lips. The wet heat of them sends electricity sparking all the way up Jinyoung’s arm and straight to the stomach, so hard it’s almost painful. But he smiles around it, shaking sweaty hair out of his own face and feeling giddy when Jaebum’s eyes follow the trail of sweat down his neck. 

“Didn’t they tell you not to talk during the movies?”

Stubborn, though, Jaebum talks against Jinyoung’s finger. “This is so much fucking better than the movies.”

And, almost as though he’d invited it, Jaebum’s lips part further, allowing two of his fingers to slide in, along his tongue, and the sensation of Jaebum’s lips closing around them past the second knuckle goes straight to his cock. Unable to help it, Jinyoung groans deep in his chest. Jaebum hears the noise he makes and grins smugly.

_ Bastard,  _ Jinyoung thinks hotly, although the clear head he’d started with has slowly been hazed over with the red mist of lust. Thoughts slam against each other and break with great, noisy bangs like billiard balls as he slips his fingers from Jaebum’s mouth with a wet pop that makes both of them groan out loud; he trails them down Jaebum’s chin and follows the line of his throat to his chest until he’s gripping Jaebum’s belt buckle with his left hand and supporting himself on his right against Jaebum’s shoulder.

If Jaebum cares about getting this shirt messy, or his jeans messy, Jinyoung doesn’t care and he doesn’t ask. Even left handed he makes quick work of the buckle, paying more attention to getting it undone than the way Jaebum moans and tips his head back with his eyes closed, hips lifting off the couch both trying to assist but also for harder friction against the swell of Jinyoung’s ass in his lap.

He finally gets it undone, popping the button of his jeans and yanking the zipper down in quick succession. The noises Jaebum is making are downright sinful, breath tearing out of his chest in quickened pants as Jinyoung slips his hand down the front of his jeans under the band of his underwear and groping him teasingly.

“Jesus fuck,” Jaebum swears, eyes squeezed shut, chest heaving like a marathon runner as Jinyoung edges the band of his boxers down with his wrist and slowly starts to stroke him one handed when it comes free of the cotton. Jinyoung can almost feel how wound up he is: every muscle in Jaebum’s body seems to be tensed, throat working, breathing so hard that if Jinyoung wasn’t currently jerking him off with precome dampening his grip, he’d be afraid of Jaebum passing out. 

“Hyung,” Jinyoung half moans, half whimpers, and bites his lips when Jaebum lifts his head back up. Their eyes meet for a moment before Jaebum looks down, making the filthiest noise Jinyoung has ever heard a man make as he watches Jinyoung’s slender fingers work the shaft of his cock in a semi-tight grip. “Hyung, look at me.”

Jaebum, both his hands free now, untucks the rest of his shirt and pulls it up to just beneath his chest almost as if he knows Jinyoung is about to do something that’s going to send him over the edge. He obeys, though, head on a string, and meets Jinyoung’s eyes with his mouth dropped open and his breath sawing out of him. 

With the hand not currently pumping Jaebum’s cock between their bodies, Jinyoung sets two fingers straight and cocks his thumb in the shape of a gun. He grins, sly and devilish, making Jaebum squeeze his eyes shut for a split second before he opens them again like he doesn’t want to miss even a moment of the way Jinyoung moves in his lap and tightens his grip on his cock. 

Jinyoung leans forward, shoulder aching almost immediately from the angle, but not wanting to stop: he can feel the way Jaebum’s cock throbs in his grip, his legs spreading underneath him and coming back together as his orgasm starts to build. His breath gets faster as Jinyoung’s lips meet his ear--he moans louder, closer together, chanting  _ fuckfuckfuckfuck  _ under his breath so fast it all sounds like one word. Jinyoung places the two fingers over Jaebum’s heart where it’s absolutely hammering against his chest. He smiles against the shell of Jaebum’s ear. 

_ “Bang.”  _

His hand on Jaebum’s chest flattens to a palm as Jaebum chokes on a noise and tenses before he comes. 

Jinyoung almost falls apart at the sight of it: Jaebum throws his head back so hard that it nearly slams into the wall, missing by a fraction as one hand lets go of his shirt to dig his blunt nails into the meat of Jinyoung’s hip. It hurts, but sends pleasure skittering through him, too, and he gradually slows his strokes as Jaebum comes messily between his fingers and collapses back into the couch.

He listens with a small smile as Jaebum pants like he’d just run a marathon, leaning down to grab the shirt he’d discarded to clean his hands and gently wipe off Jaebum’s belly. He closes his eyes and makes a soft noise as Jinyoung tucks him back into his pants and does up the button but doesn’t bother with the belt. Jaebum runs a hand through his sweat soaked hair and swallows.

“Holy shit, Jinyoung.”

There is something about the quality of his voice, that low, husky, fucked out bas, that makes Jinyoung’s cock throb. If the situation calls for it, he’ll finish himself off right here, but he’s kind of hoping that Jaebum maybe has another idea in mind. He won’t ask, though, wanting to see Jaebum’s reaction through to the end. 

He smiles smugly and thumps him lightly in the center of his chest. “Who took who apart, huh?” 

Something he learns quite quickly about Im Jaebum is that, given a challenge, there is a 90% chance he’ll take it. Despite just being single handedly dismantled by a handjob and a lap dance, the dangerousness in his eyes glints like sunlight off the edge of a razor blade. Jinyoung swallows. 

Both of Jaebum’s hands come up to grip his waist. He’s still hard, and he knows it won’t take that much for him to come apart, but neither of them acknowledge it as Jaebum slides his arms further to lock them in the small of Jinyoung’s back, gripping his own wrists.

“You think I won’t still take you apart, Park Jinyoung?”

He’s not sure what to do--he could keep up the power play, saying no, goading Jaebum into doing whatever he’s going to do hard and fast. But he thinks that, with the glint in Jaebum’s dark eyes and the heat radiating off his body that, no matter what his answer is, hard and fast is what he’s going to get. 

Jinyoung bites back a moan. 

“I’m going to stand up,” Jaebum says, holding onto him as he sits up and scoots to the end of the couch. “When I do, you have to hang onto me or I’m going to drop you, and I don’t have any intention on dropping you until I get you to my room and can throw you down onto my bed.”

Jinyoung finds himself a little speechless. He just nods, knees against Jaebum’s hips, getting ready to lock his legs around Jaebum’s waist when he stands. There’s a moment just before he does where they’re looking into each other’s faces and Jinyoung can’t resist anymore: he closes the distance, song still playing on repeat in the background and forgotten, to seal Jaebum’s mouth with his own. 

“Fuck, Jinyoung,” Jaebum moans, making a low noise in his chest when Jinyoung sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down just enough to turn that noise into a growl. 

He stands up abruptly, staggering a bit as Jinyoung’s legs wrap around his waist, but Jaebum quickly regains his footing and is carrying Jinyoung the short distance into the bedroom where the palm tree above the bed showers them in that dark, vibrant green light. Jaebum, as promised, unceremoniously throws Jinyoung down on top of the sheets. Jinyoung gasps as his back hits the bed and Jaebum strips off his shirt before climbing on top of him. 

Whereas Jinyoung’s lapdance had been taking it slow, it’s clear by the urgency of Jaebum’s hands on the waistband of his borrowed underwear yanking them down his thighs while he sloppily kisses Jinyoung’s mouth that Jaebum has no intention to do the same. He hadn’t even taken off his jeans, only supporting himself on one hand to yank the leather of his belt through all the loops before discarding it somewhere on the floor, the sound of the buckle cushioned by the lush carpet. 

In between hot, frantic kisses, Jaebum murmurs to him to reach behind his head and pull open the drawer of the bedside table. Jinyoung blindly searches for the small bottle Jaebum had told him to grab, half delirious from how hard he is and the warring sensation of Jaebum’s teeth scraping his neck and the rough friction of his jeans against the insides of his thighs. 

“Eager to--” he breaks off in a moan, dropping the bottle to the bed and fisting his hands in the sheets as Jaebum finds the sensitive spot on his neck under his ear and abuses it with his tongue and teeth. His cock, heavy and throbbing, twitches and leaks precome onto both of their stomachs as Jaebum’s bare belly slides against it. Jinyoung gasps when Jaebum’s mouth closes around one of his nipples and lightly scrapes it with his teeth. “Fuck!”

Lifting his head, Jaebum laughs breathlessly. “Eager to fuck?” he murmurs against Jinyoung’s stomach, trailing kisses down the flat center of it, pausing just above his navel as Jinyoung’s legs spread wider and he impatiently rolls his hips up. “You seem to be.”

He’s no longer above begging. Not like this, with Jaebum dipping his tongue into the shallow of Jinyoung’s navel and leaking more precome on to his own stomach. 

“I am,” he whines, gripping the sheets so hard his knuckles are white. “So please--”

But Jaebum is one step ahead of him. He’s already uncapped the lube and coated his fingers with it, letting it drip into the hollow of  Jinyoung’s hipbone, groaning when Jinyoung spreads his thighs impossibly wider. He supports himself on one hand and leans back up to kiss him again, all teeth and tongues, as he slowly works Jinyoung open with his fingers. 

Having Jinyoung completely naked under him and making all this noise seems to have the tension winding him up again. Unlike Jinyoung, he has no intention of taking it slow: he’s gentle, making sure Jinyoung is alright, but he scissors his fingers roughly and twists his wrist hard in a way that makes Jinyoung cry out and cover his eyes with his forearm. Deliriously, he wonders if college-aged Jinyoung could have ever pictured himself naked in Jaebum’s bed and getting fingered open by him while he whispers dirty things in his ear and decides that reality is always so much better than his dreams could ever be.

Finally, Jaebum pulls his fingers out gently and makes quick work of his pants; he’s too impatient to take them all the way off and Jinyoung is too impatient to let him, so he pushes them down to the tops of his thighs and slicks up his cock where he’s gotten hard again. He bites his swollen bottom lip as he angles Jinyoung’s hips in his lap so he can line up and push in slow.

Jinyoung is grateful that Jaebum doesn’t have any neighbors to hear the way he shouts profanities at the top of his lungs when Jaebum bottoms out and rests both hands on the bed over Jinyoung’s shoulders. They take a minute to adjust, Jaebum’s hips rolling slow, getting close to pulling out before sliding all the way back in, and Jinyoung can feel his whole body go up in flames as he locks his ankles in the small of Jaebum’s back. 

“Feel so good,” Jaebum murmurs into his neck, face buried there as he starts to pick up the pace, and quickly; despite Jinyoung making him come from the handjob, it seems that he’s incredibly wound up again, and the pace he sets is exactly what Jinyoung had expected when they were still on the couch: fast and hard. 

“Oh, fuck, hyung,” Jinyoung moans, hands on his shoulders sliding a bit with sweat, gripping the broadness of his back and digging his blunt nails in. He drags them down hard; Jaebum’s back bows and he makes a noise low in his throat so dirty it makes Jinyoung’s cock throb between them, almost making him come. He knows it’s going to leave a mark and, wanting Jaebum to make that noise again, he drags his nails down hard and quick across his shoulders.

“Fuck!” he shouts, breathlessly, shifting his weight more into his knees and fucking Jinyoung deeper.

Every rough thrust of Jaebum’s hips inside of him sends sharp, brutal stabs of pleasure through every inch of his body. His nerves feel raw and exposed, eyes almost watering with how good it feels, gasping when Jaebum leans up on one hand to grip his cock with the other. Jaebum run his fingertips through the lube smeared on Jinyoung’s hipbone and through the precome leaking from the head, using it to slick up his grip as he strokes him fast and dirty. Jinyoung’s whole body bows into the touch, their stomachs brushing around Jaebum’s fist, and Jinyoung feels the way his orgasm starts to throb low in the pit of his groin.

“Hyung,” he moans, voice absolutely wrecked, so wrecked that Jaebum just drops to his elbow and buries his face in Jinyoung’s neck. Jinyoung feels his cock throb as Jaebum licks at his earlobe and nips at it with straight teeth, pleasure rocketing down his spine so violently he knees Jaebum in both sides of his ribs. 

“Fuck!” Jaebum grunts, both from the pain and the effort; Jinyoung thinks he’s going to be exhausted after this, and he is, too, but god if it doesn’t feel good. And it looks good, too: looking down the length of his body he can see Jaebum’s shoulder, some of his marked up back; he can see where Jaebum’s hips pump up inside of him roughly and erratically as his second orgasm builds and his biceps flexes while jerking him off. Just the sight of it, of all of it, knowing that they’d finally gotten to this point after everything, and it’s just the two of them pulling each other apart just to fall together again, it’s too much. The sight of Jaebum on top of him and the sound of his low moans finally send him over the edge.

He grips Jaebum’s shoulders, hard, nails digging in as the starburst of his orgasm starts to bloom in his groin. Filthily, he moans, “oh, god, hyung, yes, right there, like that, hyung, yes--!” 

Jaebum makes a choked off noise as Jinyoung comes with a shouted moan, his lean body bowing up into Jaebum’s and trying to rut against him as Jaebum pumps his cock through the full orgasm and makes a mess of both their stomachs. 

Panting like  _ he’d  _ been the one to run the marathon this time, Jinyoung slides a hand into the thick of Jaebum’s hair at the back of his head and  _ yanks.  _ He lets go of Jinyoung and hits the bed on his hands, neck bared, head back with his hair tightly in Jinyoung’s fist. The growling noise he makes in the lowest part of his chest at the pleasure pain as the rhythm of his hips falters makes Jinyoung shudder with full body satisfaction. 

“Pull out and finish on my stomach,” Jinyoung pants, and Jaebum must think hearing Jinyoung’s fucked out voice say that is the hottest thing in the world because he barely makes it: he reaches down to pull out and barely has time to aim for Jinyoung’s navel before he comes again, grunting at the effort of keeping his head back where Jinyoung keeps a tight grip on his hair until he finishes. 

Exhausted, Jaebum flips over and collapses onto his back beside Jinyoung, breathing hard with his arm over his eyes and his pants still pushed down his thighs. It’s quiet for a while: not awkward by any means, which Jinyoung finds himself being happy about. They lay in the silence of two very tired, very fucked out people who just released enough sexual tension to power the whole building for a week. 

Finally both of their breathing evens out, and Jaebum sits up on the edge of the bed, kicking off his jeans and throwing them at the open closet door with very little actual aim. He stands up and pulls his boxers up over his hips long enough to disappear into the bathroom with a damp towel before coming back and kneeling by Jinyoung’s hip on the bed and gently cleaning off his belly. 

Jinyoung grips his wrist softly, not intending to stop him, just holding it. “I can do that for you, hyung, if you want.”

He shakes his head and smiles; he looks happy. Tired, but happy--there’s a glow to that smile, one reserved just for him, and Jinyoung smiles back at him. He relaxes back into the mattress as Jaebum finishes wiping him off gently before kicking off his boxers and doing the same to himself. This time when he disappears, it’s into the closet, all the dirty laundry dumped into a hamper and then he returns with fresh underwear for them both and another oversized shirt for Jinyoung.

“C’mere,” Jaebum murmurs, patting the edge of the bed and motioning for Jinyoung to scoot down enough so he can help him dress. There’s a tenderness now to Jaebum’s touch where there was once urgency, and Jinyoung is secretly glad that the release of all their pent up sexual tension did not change how Jaebum seemed to feel about him. In fact, if anything, it has made him more gentle, more soft; he can’t stop smiling, sweaty hair pushed off his face, a blush stained across the high bones of his cheeks. He pulls the shirt down over Jinyoung’s head and when he reappears, Jinyoung surprises him by leaning up quick for a kiss.

“Mm,” Jaebum hums, letting go of the hem of the shirt to let it fall around Jinyoung’s legs and cups his face instead. He holds him there, leaning down the rest of the way to kiss him back, the both of them falling into the feeling of a kiss, sweet, no longer so frantic and needy, just this, what it needs to be. Not fronted by some awful argument, not trailed by some awkward laughter, not a precursor to sex. Just this, a kiss. 

Jinyoung pulls him down, back into bed, the top blanket that they had just had sex on pushed off and to the floor and the thinner one beneath it pulled up around their waists. Jaebum chuckles softly when Jinyoung scoots closer and slides his legs between Jaebum’s, tangling them up, and Jinyoung sighs happily when Jaebum’s arm drapes loosely over his hip.

Neither of them say anything. Jinyoung doesn’t know  _ what _ to say, or if he has to say anything: for once in the history of the time that they’ve known each other and pulled each other back and forth like the jagged teeth of a saw in a tree stump, as they lay on their sides and look into each other’s eyes, it feels enough to stay like this. There’s no need for a confession to fill the silence. 

It’s just this, until they both fall asleep.

Just this. 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> famous last words 

 

 

There were many moments in Jinyoung’s life, before this one but after the hurricane that was Taegun, where Jinyoung considered (incorrectly, but inherently) that perhaps Taegun had been right about him. Even after he had gotten incalculable praise from his role in the short film, and even  _ after  _ he had gotten the offer from Lee Minho, he had felt that, without his looks, the industry would be insurmountable. Taegun had, deliberately or not, planted a rotten seed in Jinyoung’s heart with the words that grew to stain it.  _ Don’t mistake looks for talent. Don’t mistake attention for love.  _

And as much as he tried to hide the fact that it followed him like some unmovable shadow, the thought never left. It bled all over everything, marring it, making it so that Jinyoung’s relationship with himself and with others was tainted by the thought that he was not good enough. That this was all he was going to be, a handsome face to put in films. 

This thought, so wrong as it is, did not go away with the casting of himself in Jaebum’s movie, but amplified it with the hostility in which he and Jaebum had initiated. It was the back and forth of them, the confusing nature of Jaebum as a whole person, that fed into Jinyoung’s understanding of himself as little more than a pretty face not really good enough in talent to be a star, but a star  _ because  _ he was a pretty face. 

He blinks awake. Sunlight, a soft gold color with the earliness of the morning, slips in through the gaps of the horizontal blinds shuttering the massive window on the wall. Jinyoung closes his eyes against the light, soft though it is, and takes a deep breath through his nose as he stretches out his body along cool sheets on a big, unbearably soft bed. The worn cotton of an old shirt five times too big and the material of boxer briefs a size too small shifts pleasantly against his skin as he does. A blanket, heavy and warm and bleached to perfect whiteness, bunches around his waist as he opens his eyes again to blink into the shadowy light of Jaebum’s room. 

Jinyoung turns his head, rubbing one swollen eye with the heel of his palm. He’s startled to see that Jaebum is already awake and seems to just be watching him, feline eyes sleepy and adorably swollen. 

There’s silence between them for a few drawn out moments. Gold light slices in from the slats of the blinds and fall across Jaebum’s face and neck and bare shoulders, a single bar of it illuminating his usually black eyes to two pools of dark coffee. Sleep clings to the folds under his eyes. A pinkish flush, like shyness or warmth from his body, stains the high points of his cheekbones and the column of his neck where he’s laying on his side, one arm tucked beneath his head. His silky black hair is mussed and rumpled both from being clawed at by Jinyoung’s fingers all night and the satin of the pillowcases. 

Loveliness. A painting that no great could ever master. Jinyoung’s heart, rumpled and ruined thing that it was, blooms like a new flower. 

Jaebum smiles at him; his coffee colored eyes turn to crescents, eyelashes shadowing the tops of his cheeks. “Good morning,” is all he says, but to Jinyoung he might as well have said  _ I love you.  _

Jinyoung breathes back at him, said mostly through an inhale as he stretches again as an excuse to move to his body closer to Jaebum’s, “g'morning, hyung.” 

Thankfully Jaebum takes the curving of Jinyoung’s lean body toward him as the invitation that it is, and the arm that had been resting along his ribs curls around Jinyoung’s waist to pull him closer. Jinyoung’s breath catches and calms when their chests bump together and their stomachs brush, Jaebum’s bare and his own half hidden by the ridden-up shirt. Skin slides against skin and their hips slot together. Warmth pools in his groin. 

Jaebum, still just watching Jinyoung’s face, uses his wrist to ease the shirt up Jinyoung’s back to the base of his neck. Jinyoung thinks he might be trying to take it off; the thought of getting intimate after just waking up and not even talking yet is more exhilarating than he realizes. But Jaebum just lets the shirt rest there, instead taking up a steady rhythm of running his fingertips up the length of Jinyoung’s spine from the small of his back and his knuckles back down in the opposite direction. He seems content to just do this—look at each other, touch softly, not talking. 

Jinyoung would be, too, under normal circumstances. But their circumstances in particular are not quite ordinary and despite how wonderful it is to have the object of years long affection looking at him like this, Jinyoung can’t hold back. 

“You’re so cute in the morning.”

“Not during the rest of the day?” Jaebum says, voice still scratchy and deep with sleep; the sound of it melts and slides down Jinyoung’s back like butter. He shivers a little.

“Funny.”

“You think so?” 

Jinyoung drapes the arm he’s not laying on around Jaebum’s neck. His skin is warm to the touch, soft, marked with bruises from Jinyoung’s teeth in a senseless pattern on his throat. Jinyoung smiles and tangles his fingers in the silky hair at the base of Jaebum’s head.

“What’re you smilin’ at?” Jaebum asks, though lazily, like he’s content enough not to hear the answer. His coffee colored eyes illuminated by the sunshine whisper closed for a moment and his breath catches when Jinyoung runs the pads of his fingers along his skin from the back of his neck to trace the marks he’d made with his mouth.

Bambam is going to be pissed, probably. Not at Jaebum of course–Jaebum can have all the hickies he wants and it’s not going to matter until they have a press conference or the premiere. Paparazzi shots aside, Jaebum doesn’t spend as much time in front of the camera as Jinyoung does, and if Jaebum’s throat is marked up like this, Jinyoung can’t imagine what his own looks like. Or his stomach. Or his shoulders. Or his thighs. Jinyoung, on the other hand, is having a  _ much  _ harder time mustering up any feeling about it other than accomplishment.

“These,” Jinyoung murmurs. Jaebum’s hand on his back flattens to a palm in the dip just before the curve of his ass. “Bambam is going to have a hell of a time covering these on me.”

He snorts. “He’ll be fine. There’s not that many on your neck, anyway.”

With a closed-mouth giggle, Jinyoung rolls away onto his back and stretches out again after kicking the blanket down past his knees. “That’s because they’re all on my thighs. Look at this!” 

Jinyoung bends his knees, drawing them up and using his fingers to pull up the hem of the boxer briefs nearly to his groin. Sunlight sluices across his skin, dyeing his already tan skin more to gold, and highlighting the mess of dark marks Jaebum’s mouth had made. Jinyoung’s sure that when he lifts up his shirt, there might be the faintest imprints of Jaebum’s fingers pressed to his hips, too. But he doesn’t hate it–far from it, actually; Jinyoung’s body feels warm when he turns his head on the pillow to look at Jaebum and sees him propped up on his elbow, quietly admiring the marks he made.

“They look good, though. And I don’t remember you complaining.” He grins when Jinyoung makes a noise. “In fact, it didn’t sound like a complaint at all. It was more like––” and then he starts fake moaning, theatrically, an obvious mockery of the way Jinyoung actually sounds. Jinyoung bursts into helpless giggles and gently takes a swing at him, but Jaebum just drops down to his back and catches Jinyoung’s hand with his.

He doesn’t say anything for a while, and Jinyoung doesn’t either. Jaebum seems content to scoot a little closer and hold Jinyoung’s hand in his, admiring their differences in the sunlight as it climbs the walls like restless golden shadows. If Jinyoung ever thought that he would wake up in Im Jaebum’s bed and that Im Jaebum would be so gently playing with his fingers and watching their hands together like it was the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, he surely would have thought himself crazy. 

Reality is so, so much better.

Jinyoung is reluctant to interrupt the way Jaebum’s cat eyes are laser focused on the way their fingers intertwine. He slides them together, then apart; the sunlight glints off the chrome of Jaebum’s rings and stains the back of Jinyoung’s bare hands to shining. Jaebum’s hands are surprisingly large: it’s hard to tell, Jinyoung thinks, when he keeps them hidden by long sleeves of oversized hoodies, but his palms are wide and firm and his fingers are thick, a lovely contrast to the thinness of Jinyoung’s. He never thought he’d find something so entrancing about hands, but recently Jaebum has made him reevaluate many aspects of himself. 

“Hyung,” he whispers, blinking. Jaebum’s eyes slide away from their hands to his and back again with a small smile hiding at the corner of his lips. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.” 

“I almost feel like this isn’t real,” he says softly. Jaebum links their fingers together tightly and draws them to his chest, Jinyoung’s knuckles brushing his bare skin. “Like when I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, that couldn’t have been real. And then I turned over and saw you sleeping in my bed, looking the way you do—“ his breath catches. “Everything is so perfect right now. The silence, the light. You. You, being in my bed.” Jaebum sighs happily and Jinyoung can feel the expand and collapse of his chest against the back of his hand. “It’s so good it’s unreal.” 

“It almost wasn’t. We were stupid, huh?” Jinyoung says, giving him a lopsided grin. Jaebum smiles back at him. 

“Yeah. Me especially. I was so—I realized, somewhere, that what I was doing to you—it was just cruelty. I was justifying it to myself as self preservation because I was so scared of what you were doing to me, but—it was cruel. And maybe if I had just opened myself up to the idea—“

“Hyung,” Jinyoung interrupts, gently, with a finger against Jaebum’s lips. “It’s alright. I think we’ve talked about it plenty. We’re going to be okay from here. It’s going to work.” 

But Jaebum looks serious—so serious that it makes Jinyoung’s eyebrows furrow in worry. “What—“

“There will never be enough apologies for the way I treated you, Jinyoung-ah. I’m sorry for that and I always will be.”

“Me too, hyung,” he agrees quietly. But his heart has already taken off, soaring, the silhouette of Icarus against a clear, blue sky. Jinyoung lets his smile curl the corners of his mouth as he scoots closer and leans up to angle his head just so, mouth hovering above Jaebum’s parted lips. He watches Jaebum’s eyes close and reopen on a new look of desire in real time and feels invincible. 

“I can think of how you can make it up to me, hyung.” 

Jaebum’s response is breathless; their hands have disentangled and Jaebum slides a palm up the back of Jinyoung’s shirt to keep him from rolling away again. 

“You didn’t get enough of that last night?”

His smile shifts into a smirk. “Oh, hyung,” he says, then leans in to close the gap. 

The kiss starts slow just like he had hoped. Jinyoung kisses him once, smiling after, then again, pulling away to look at his face. But then he goes in for a third and doesn’t move away: the kiss deepens as Jinyoung shifts. He throws a leg over Jaebum’s hip where he’s laying on his back and Jaebum’s lips part greedily in a gasp when he feels Jinyoung’s weight settle in his lap. The sunlight continues to creep up the walls and decorate them in stripes of light as Jinyoung’s tongue slips into Jaebum’s mouth and Jaebum’s hands slide up his thighs to hold him by the waist while they kiss hot and slow. 

Beneath him, Jaebum’s breathing quickens as the kiss ratchets up in tension. His hands move from Jinyoung’s waist to his back underneath the shirt, to his hips, to his thighs and to his waist against where he unconsciously pulls Jinyoung harder against him looking for friction. Jinyoung moans softly into his mouth when he shifts his hips and feels Jaebum get hard. 

“You know we can’t have sex right now,” Jaebum says breathlessly, in between insistent kisses and their tongues sliding together. He drops his head back against the pillows as Jinyoung trails kisses away from his mouth to his jaw, nodding but not listening as he balances himself on Jaebum’s bare shoulders. 

Jinyoung would otherwise point out that it’s not fair for Jaebum to say that when he looks so damn good laying in bed shirtless and sleep mussed, but his mouth is occupied with tonguing the silver on Jaebum’s earlobe with a dirty noise that makes Jaebum’s hips buck. 

He groans low in his chest and pulls Jinyoung down against him harder, the thin material separating Jaebum’s hard cock and the swell of Jinyoung’s ass little more than a nuisance when he does it. “I’m—fuck—I’m serious, Jinyoung—we have to be on set at the docks soon. If we start having sex now we’re never going to leave.” 

Annoyed (but only because Jaebum is right and he knows he’s about to give them both major blue balls), Jinyoung leans up and takes off his shirt to reveal the length of his marked up, lean body and where he is also hard in Jaebum’s boxer briefs. 

“Then let’s not leave,” he whines, scooting back until he’s sitting on Jaebum’s slightly spread thighs, fingertips playing at the waistband of his underwear. Jaebum’s eyes roll back as his stomach flexes and Jinyoung watches smugly when his cock twitches at the implication. 

“Jinyoung—“ it breaks off in a moan when Jinyoung lightly runs his fingers along the hard length of Jaebum’s cock where it’s glaringly obvious. “I’m serious. I’d love to cancel shooting so I could just fuck you all day—“

“Shit, hyung—"

“But—ah, fuck, we actually do have to go, they only gave us access to the docks for today. I’m pretty sure—fuck!” 

Jaebum bites off what he’d been about to say when Jinyoung yanks down the band of his underwear and lets it snap against the skin underneath his balls. He jerks and grips the sheets in one hand. “They’re setting up already,” he finishes lamely, panting and watching Jinyoung down the length of his nose. 

With a grin, Jinyoung checks his watch. “If there’s no time for sex, you at least have time for me to blow you, right?”

If the look on his face was anything but eagerness, Jinyoung might think that he was about to have a heart attack. Jaebum, though, decides quite enthusiastically that they absolutely have time for Jinyoung to suck him off and squeezes his eyes shut with a groan. 

Jinyoung makes quick work of him. The kissing already had Jaebum wound up, and the tip of him is already wet with precome that Jinyoung drags a thumb through to slick him up a little bit. The noise Jaebum makes when Jinyoung closes his lips over the head of his cock is pure heaven. 

“Jesus Christ, Jinyoung,” is the last thing he manages to say until he comes down the back of Jinyoung’s throat less than three minutes later. 

When he finishes, Jinyoung sits up and wipes at his lips with the back of his wrist, like it would somehow hide his triumphant smile. It doesn’t, though, and he gets his when Jaebum sits up quick to flip them and gets his hand between Jinyoung’s legs to finish him off in similar quick, dirty fashion. 

“Now we’re even,” Jaebum says, grinning, the longer pieces of his hair hanging down around his face where he hovers over Jinyoung’s body and the mess he’d made on his own stomach. 

“If I didn’t like you so much, I’d probably slap you,” Jinyoung says, and immediately closes his mouth. 

Jaebum’s face is blank. Jinyoung hadn’t even realized that he was going to say that—he just  _ said  _ it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and that’s because it  _ is.  _ But perhaps he’d said it too soon: after all, they haven’t discussed in any certainty what they are, or what they’re going to do from here, although it’s clear from Jaebum’s loving gaze this morning that it’s going  _ somewhere.  _ A swelling anxiety bursts open in his chest when Jaebum doesn’t react right away and just stares at him openly in the wake of Jinyoung’s honesty. 

Finally he can’t take it. He swallows. “Hyung, say something.” 

“You—“ Jaebum’s voice falters. “You like me? A lot?” 

And in his voice is surprise—not anger, or refute. Surprise, like after everything so far, their soft kisses in the office and the night they’d spent together and the morning getting each other off, he still can’t believe Jinyoung could like him. That swelling in Jinyoung’s heart continues but for a different reason. 

He reaches up to pat Jaebum’s face. “You big, adorable idiot.”

Laughing, Jaebum buries his face in Jinyoung’s neck, the smile pressed into Jinyoung’s skin. He can feel the movement of Jaebum’s swollen lips when he says,

“I like you, too, Jinyoungie.”

  
  
  
  


“This isn’t going to work.”

Jaebum turns where he has already gotten dressed, in slim fitting jeans and a button up shirt he tucks in but only does up halfway. He ruins the utter majesty of such a revealing outfit by roughly pulling on a giant hoodie and then stuffing it into a denim jacket. 

“What do you mean?”

“Look at this!” Jinyoung laments, holding his arms out. The shirt that Jaebum had picked out for him from his own closet hangs comically low off his arms and down to nearly mid-thigh. They had forgotten to put his clothes in the washing machine last night and, as such, Jinyoung doesn’t have anything to wear to set. 

He wants to be annoyed, but Jaebum sticks his lower lip out as he adjusts the hood of his sweatshirt over his denim jacket and just looks painfully cute instead of unhelpful. “It looks cute, though.” 

“I think you just have a thing for seeing me in your clothes,” Jinyoung mumbles, grabbing the low hem and lifting the shirt off over his head. 

He doesn’t see it, but Jaebum watches him remove the too-big shirt and bites his lip. “Yeah. I do.” 

With a grin Jinyoung balls up the shirt and throws it at him, which Jaebum catches and tosses carelessly over his shoulder. 

“What should we do? I can’t—I can’t just show up to set in your clothes, hyung. We can’t go together and we definitely can’t show up together  _ and  _ me be wearing your clothes. If that’s not a big, glaring sign announcing what we did last night then I don’t know what is.”

Jaebum bites his lip again, but thoughtfully this time instead of out of pleasure A few moments pass between them: Jinyoung, standing half in Jaebum’s closet in Jaebum’s underwear, and Jaebum, standing near the foot of his bed completely dressed. Jinyoung almost considers just saying  _ fuck it  _ and letting the internet explode with news of them hooking up but there’s an uneasiness that resides in him about letting that information slip too soon. 

Eventually Jaebum just sighs. “Listen, I’ll call my driver and have him pick me up. Wait up here for about 20 minutes, and then go out the back door downstairs, it leads to the entry of the parking garage but you can still get to the street. Have your driver pick you up there, go home and change, and then call me on your way to set. I’ll answer and you can make it sound like something came up and you’ll just be late.” 

It comes so quickly. So simply. Oh, how easy it is for them to lie. Jinyoung knows it’s for the best but that uneasiness in him turns his stomach to rocks. 

But he also knows that in order for them to keep this, to fix this, they have to keep it private for now. If they were to expose this to the world too soon, this thing could shatter apart from the pressure of the public eye before they even have time to save it. Jinyoung knows that. And yet he still wishes that they could go together and that Jinyoung could kiss him in the car and kiss him on set and make it known that prolific Im Jaebum is spoken for. The thought he’d had outside the drug store returns:  _ god, I wish we weren’t famous.  _

Jaebum, still standing across from him at the foot of his unmade bed, furrows his brows and shifts on his feet. He interrupts Jinyoung’s train of thought by asking,

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He blinks himself awake. “Like what?”

“Like—“ he struggles for a definition. “I don’t know. Like something bad is going to happen.” 

Jinyoung, unaware that he’d been letting his feelings show so outwardly on his face, tries to visibly soften.

“Oh, hyung. I’m sorry. It’s nothing, I was just letting my thoughts get away from me.”

But this explanation doesn’t seem to placate him any. If anything it serves to make Jaebum  _ more  _ nervous: he shifts again and shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Jinyoung… don’t do that.” 

“Do what?” 

His voice is soft. “Shut me out.” 

There’s a moment when the words land, like how snow hits the ground and sticks. It doesn’t melt under warmth, but sticks to the ice that had already been laid there, and Jinyoung worries deeply in this moment that, by wishing  _ so badly  _ for them to have a normal life, he had inadvertently stepped backward into a past that they had both made clear that they wanted to leave behind. They just look at each other, an unspoken conversation occurring in the span of a few heartbeats and slow blinks: each memory replayed like a film on mute, the heartache, the misery. Jinyoung bundles up the shirt yes holding in his hands and takes a deep breath. 

“It’s nothing,” he says again, and crosses the space between them to throw his arms around Jaebum’s neck when it looks like he’s going to sigh. “I promise you. I was just—“ and he buries his face in Jaebum’s neck, almost shyly, but maybe mostly out of shame. “I was just thinking that I wish we weren’t famous so I could go with you and kiss you wherever I want without worrying about what people have to say.”

Where they’re pressed together, he can feel Jaebum’s heartbeat stutter in his thin chest. Jaebum’s throat works audibly on a swallow and he holds Jinyoung back by the shoulders to look at him in the face, an unbelievable softness painted there in gold light that starts to shift toward afternoon. 

“Me too. I do. But we have to—we have to keep this here for now, okay? I don’t want to fuck this up.”

And he’s so sincere, which makes the piercing in Jinyoung’s heart hurt worse. There’s an echo of the boy he’d been in the look in his eyes, the faint anxious tremble in his voice, the boy who lost everything and lived to tell the tale. That boy is still there. He haunts Jaebum’s heart just around the corner from where the feeling he must harbor for Jinyoung has started to come in, not quite taunting it, no, but wary of it. It’s clear in the way Jaebum’s fingers flex on the tops of his arms that he’s just as terrified as Jinyoung to ruin this before they can even start it. 

_ I don’t want to fuck this up.  _

Jinyoung knows what a disaster it would be to say  _ I love you,  _ but as he leans in to kiss away Jaebum’s nervousness, he thinks of all the artists who must not have been afraid to cut themselves open on a little bit of glass and smiles.   
  
  


***   
  


Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jinyoung’s phone call to set and his subsequent late arrival seems to rustle very little feathers and raise even fewer eyebrows. 

It had taken them forever to leave—Jaebum had finally found sweatpants and a shirt that fit Jinyoung well enough to get him home in, and after he had dressed and they were both at the door, they kissed against it for fifteen minutes as Jinyoung let one unworn tennis shoe dangle from his fingertips where he had been about to put it on. Jaebum’s hands were warm and greedy; his mouth the same, whining sweet nothings about how late he was going to be if they didn’t stop kissing. 

Jinyoung had laughed and kept kissing back. “Hyung, you’re the one who kissed  _ me.”  _

And eventually, Jaebum had broken apart with a sigh, lips swollen and cherry red. He ran a hand through his dark hair and just looked at Jinyoung leaning against the door, face flushed, dressed nearly head to toe in Jaebum’s clothes. He found himself wondering if Jaebum was making a mental film of him but felt too shy to ask. 

When he left, Jaebum fussed over him from the doorway, making a not-so-subtle threat that if he didn’t wear his coat to the car no matter how stupid it looked over his clothes and he found out, that Jinyoung would have hell to pay. He’d rolled his eyes—it had seemed to tempt Jaebum to come back in, eyebrow cocked, but Jinyoung had merely put a firm hand on his chest and pushed him out to lock the door behind him. 

He’d gotten a text message as he was putting on his other shoe less than thirty seconds later:

_ What’s locking the door gonna do? This is my house  _

Jinyoung had laughed. He found that, in the silence of Jaebum’s beautiful apartment, he was missing him already. 

As such, he spent very little time in his own apartment getting ready to go to set at the docks, dressing more warmly than usual so that Jinyoung could spare Youngjae from listening to Jaebum lament about his lack of jacket attire, whatever that meant. And, thankfully, Kwon didn’t ask any questions when Jinyoung got in wearing clothes that weren’t his and smelling like a body soap he’d never even think to buy: he only smirked, allowed himself to be slapped lightly in the chest by the back of Jinyoung’ hand, and then headed home. 

On set, hardly anyone blinks at him when he arrives late. He’s greeted with the same almost cautious trepidation that has seemed to follow him since his blow up in the courtroom: it’s like now that the cast has seen what Jinyoung is capable of, not just a pretty face who will lie down and take whatever comes, they’re just a  _ little _ bit more afraid of him. Which is, in his opinion, a little ridiculous. 

But if it keeps them off his back about Jaebum, well… the more afraid, the better. 

He had underestimated just how hard it would be to occupy the same space as Jaebum after everything that’s happened between them in the past 24 hours and not get to touch him, kiss him freely like he so badly wants to. Bambam constantly slaps his jittery hands where they flex and unflex like he’s nervous on different parts of his body. He hopes that the way his eyes keep flicking over to wherever Jaebum is standing on the freezing docks with cold wind whipping at his face is as subtle as he’s trying to make it, but the clicking of Bambam’s tongue makes him think that he’s not being very successful. 

“You could at least  _ try  _ to keep your tongue in your mouth,” Bambam says, grinning madly when Jinyoung’s eyes widen in alarm. His mouth hadn’t even been open but part of him startles like it had been. 

“What?” 

Bambam pats his shoulder lightly as he leans away to switch makeup brushes. When he leans back up and starts lightly dusting his face, he smiles. 

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” 

Jinyoung feels the skin of his cheeks go pink with hot blood; he feigns ignorance by muttering that he doesn’t know what Bambam is talking about, but the blush on his face and the way he’s having trouble looking at Bambam directly tells the stylist everything he needs to know. 

“You don’t have to tell me tell me,” Bambam grins. “But something happened, that much I know. You haven’t stopped looking at each other since you got here.”

His heart flutters madly in his chest like delicate bird’s wings. “He’s been looking at me? You said he always did that, though, like—“

“Like you’re the only person in the room,” Bambam finishes. He starts messing with Jinyoung’s hair and slaps Jackson’s hand away when he ruffles it as he passes by. “Yes. And that’s still true, but now on top of it, he looks love sick. It’s kind of gross, actually.”

Maybe, but Jinyoung can’t help the way he bites his bottom lip on a smile. At this point, Bambam is just as invested in his life as Yugyeom is, and it would feel just as unfair as if he was keeping it from Yugyeom. He finds that he vastly underestimated just how close he would grow to the people he’s met on this set, and a happiness blows through him like warm, steady wind. 

“We—we had a date.”

Bambam’s dark eyebrow cocks toward his white hairline, but his smile is genuine. “And?”

“It was amazing. He cooked for me, and we talked like we’ve known each other forever. We actually got to know each other better. Did you know his favorite movie is the one I’m in?” 

Surprisingly, Bambam nods. “Yeah. He talked about that film all the time on other projects or just in general. He drew a lot of inspiration from it.”

His heart flutters again. “And we had dessert, and I met his cat. She scared me and I spilled wine all over the table and myself, which ruined my clothes—“

“And let me guess, Jaebum hyung let you borrow some of his but you guys just ended up having sex?” 

Jinyoung, despite that being  _ absolutely _ what happened, feels his eyes widen in alarm at the volume in which Bambam says this. It’s not like he shouted it, and the background noise of everything else around them really drowns out a large majority of their conversation, but he’s still worried someone will overhear him and the rumors will explode. 

“Shh!” he slaps Bambam lightly on the arm. “Can you not yell that?” 

Final piece of Jinyoung’s wardrobe in hand, Bambam laughs through closed lips and urges him to put it on. “But you didn’t say no, hyung.” 

Jinyoung laughs in return as he slides into the jacket Bambam holds out for him. When he gets it on and adjusts it by the hem, he turns with a grin. 

“That’s because we did.”

Bambam cheers loudly, and Jinyoung can’t help but notice the way Jaebum looks over with a fond smile as he covers Bambam’s mouth with a warm palm. 

He shouldn’t, but Jinyoung smiles back. 

  
  
  
  


After filming for a while, Jaebum calls break. The wind is absolutely whipping off the water and with only one scene left to shoot here, they’re about ready to call it a day, but he calls a break for lunch since everyone is cold, getting tired, and very hungry. 

There is an unspoken agreement between them that, on set and in person, they are to remain cordial but not unfriendly or downright hostile like they used to be. Their intention is to show that their blow up at the courthouse was patched up and rectified, as much as an incident like that  _ can  _ be rectified in the public sphere without revealing the more sordid details of  _ how.  _ Their stolen glances are even dangerous, and he  _ knows  _ they’re dangerous; anyone could be watching them with a critical eye, but Jinyoung just can’t help the thrill that shoots down his back when their eyes meet across the shooting location. He gets vivid memories of Jaebum holding him against the front door and abusing his mouth with his teeth in rough, greedy kisses and feels his belly warm him from the inside out. 

Leaned against the side of a van with someone or other’s giant padded jacket draped over the front of him, Jinyoung calmly sips his hot coffee from the tiny paper cup he’d been handed and watches the bustle of the rest of the crew with a sense of peace inside of him. They had good days on set before this, he knows; there was a time period of maybe two weeks or so where there were no incidents between them, and while at that time he felt  _ better,  _ he did not feel at peace. There was still something inside of him that ached with the bitterness of Jaebum’s feelings about him and it was not peaceful. But this—catching Jaebum’s eyes as he looks up from clipboards and PA iPads and cellphones and feeling the smile that teases the corner of his mouth—this is peace. Plain and simple.

He considers what he’s going to tell Yugyeom. And Taecyeon. He’s not sure who he’s more worried about telling—maybe Taecyeon. Yugyeom will probably just put him in a headlock and inadvertently almost choke him to death while yelling  _ see, I was right, why don’t you ever listen to me when you know I’m smarter than you?  _ Taecyeon, older brother that he seems to be sometimes (even if he tries to deny it), will be more skeptical. He will probably smile, congratulate him, but then his eyebrows will furrow and he’ll give Jinyoung one of those cryptic warnings.  _ Just be careful, okay?  _ Something like that. Something that will make him worry when he hadn’t been to begin with. 

Coffee swirling hot steam into his face where he holds the cup under his nose, Jinyoung watches Jackson and Mark flirt openly and wishes, perhaps a little bitterly, that he could have that. It had been easy with Jackson, not worried about the press, really, except when Jaebum had made a big deal about it. Jinyoung finds himself falling back on that feeling he’d gotten outside the pharmacy: wishing that they weren’t famous. Just for a few hours, so that the two of them could run through the neon lit streets with their hands linked and  _ breathe _ .

In the middle of this thought, a PA carrying way too much equipment in their hands doesn’t see the craft table set up right in her path and ends up crashing into it. Everyone’s gasps of surprise and whoops of jovial laughter isn’t nearly enough to cover the crashing and banging of equipment hitting the ground and the table almost breaking in half with the strain. Most of the food that had been sitting on top of the craft table spills sadly along the uneven pavement and, despite the fact that the PA jumps right up unharmed (but terribly embarrassed; even from here Jinyoung can see the redness that stains her cheeks all the way down to her neck and to her ears), it’s all a lost cause. Groans of annoyance join the cacophony even as people help her pick up and the meager rations left are placed back on the now crooked table.

Lamenting a little internally about not being able to eat, Jinyoung feels his phone vibrate in his pants pocket and slides it out absentmindedly.

**Im Jaebum-ssi  
** _ Did you get to eat?  _

That warm fuzzy feeling burns inside of him. Jinyoung smiles into the rim of his cup and resists the urge to look up and find him.

_ No :( all that fruit, hyung… I wanted some haha  _

He waits with his phone in his hand as the three dots pop up while Jaebum is typing and smiles.

_ I’m sorry. I’ll make you dinner tonight? At my place again  _

God, he wants to look up so bad. He wants to run to Jaebum and throw himself into his arms and say yes, yes, yes.

_ Sure, hyung :) _

_ Haha, do you think they’d be mad if I was just like, ok everyone we’re getting fast food delivered _

Jinyoung bites both lips and chuckles softly to himself. He places his nearly empty coffee cup on the hood of the van he’d been leaning against and uses both hands to text back.

_ Probably not. But actually, fries sound really good now… _

Jaebum texts back almost immediately:

_ Yeah? Let’s go on a date tonight  _

This time, he does look up, even though he shouldn’t: heart pounding, his eyes immediately find Jaebum where he’s half turned to one of the camera operators and pointing at something in the distance. Jaebum looks at him for less than a second, face not changing, cellphone held loosely in the other hand. 

_ A date?  _

He tries to watch Jaebum from beneath his lashes; Jaebum keeps talking to the camera operator and then pats him on the back to send him off before looking down at his phone. Jinyoung watches him type with his stomach fluttering madly.

_ Yeah. Won’t be anything fancy, but… my car has tinted windows and the back of the McDo’s parking lot is pretty dark. We can get fries and talk and then you can stay over, if you want  _

Nothing has ever sounded better. Jinyoung replies immediately with an enthusiastic yes and watches Jaebum smile down at his phone before confirming and then calling them all back to set.

_ A date,  _ Jinyoung thinks, almost walking on air.  _ We’re almost normal. _

  
  
  
  
  


After filming is over and Jinyoung is dropped off at home by one of the crew members, he finds himself nearly shaking apart with excitement. He lays on his bed in his coldly wrinkled clothes and texts Jaebum directions, giving him very specific instructions on how to come around the back and park on the curb at the back entrance. As long as he keeps all his windows rolled up and Jinyoung gets in fairly quick, the odds of someone realizing he’s getting into Jaebum’s car are very, very slim. 

He showers quickly. The warm water feels good after being outside in the cold nearly all day: since they all got home way after the sun had gone down, Jaebum almost seemed hesitant to waste any time before coming to get him, and he told Jinyoung to text him as soon as he’s done showering so he can come over. Jinyoung, in his towel and dripping on the floor with his phone already in hand, feels a thrill chase itself down his back that Jaebum, too, feels it like this. 

Every dream that Jinyoung ever had that ever felt too big—none of them compare to this. And this one is  _ real.  _

Jaebum tells him he’s on his way and Jinyoung fights with what to wear: it’s not like they’re going to be doing anything crazy in a  _ car  _ (although, with a shiver and a mental picture he can’t quite get rid of, he can’t deny that the thought of it is quite tantalizing), and it’s not a  _ fancy  _ date, like their first, so he’s reluctant to overdress. In the end he just slides on a pair of slim fitting olive dress pants with a long sleeved, striped shirt tucked in. Hearing Jaebum’s voice in his head before he even leaves his closet, he grabs a thick sweater and pulls it on over his still-wet hair.

Thirty minutes later, hair finally dry and tapping an impatiently sneakered toe against the floor near his apartment door, Jinyoung feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

**Im Jaebum-ssi  
** _ Jinyoung-ah, I’m downstairs. Come outside  _

Heart starting to race a little, Jinyoung makes his way downstairs and slips past the security guard, who barely even waves as him as he goes out the glass back door. With a much more narrow road akin to an alley and less fancy lighting and decoration than the front, it makes it hard for paparazzi to hide back here, and Jinyoung slides into the front seat of Jaebum’s car with little trouble.

Pulling his mask down to beneath his chin, he smiles. “Hi, hyung.”

He says it a little breathlessly, awed by Jaebum’s easy handsomeness. He had looked killer at dinner, dressed to the nines in black and chrome, but even like this, in khaki joggers and an oversized t-shirt stuffed underneath a hoodie, face bare and hair shoved messily underneath a hat, Jinyoung feels that breath catch in his throat. How easy it is. How intensely he feels for Jaebum, already, with so little time between them. How wonderful and terrifying a feeling like this is. 

But Jaebum just does the same: there’s a pause in his breathing when Jinyoung pushes his mask down, the tiniest bit unshaved. “Hi, Jinyoungie.” 

And, oh, how much more wonderful and terrifying that feeling is when Jaebum leans over despite themselves and kisses him like there is no one else on earth.

Jinyoung, despite wanting to grab the back of Jaebum’s hat and kiss him into the center of the earth, leans away with his lips tucked behind his teeth in a hidden smile.

“Getting greeted with kisses is nice and all,” he says playfully as Jaebum starts to pull from the alley, “but I do believe I was promised french fries.”

Jaebum makes a face. “Is that all you’re here for? Me to buy you french fries?”

“Of course not,” Jinyoung pouts. He points Jaebum in the direction of the nearest McDonald’s, motioning out the windshield before leaning back into the leather seat. “I’m also here for your cat to ruin my nice clothes.”

The groan Jaebum lets out is audible and filled with guilt. Jinyoung had been joking, of course, but Jaebum throws him a look as he turns at an intersection and all the lights illuminate the pained expression on his face.

“Don’t talk about that, it might summon her.”

Jinyoung laughs. “What is she, a demon?”

“You saw her that night,” Jaebum says, smiling at him, his own mask pushed under his chin as he drives. “Oh! I forgot to tell you, I bought you a new sweater.”

“Me?” Jinyoung blanches. “Wait, why?”

“Since Nora ruined yours. I bought you a new one. It should be here in a few days, so when it comes, you can come over and I’ll make you dinner.”

“Hyung,” Jinyoung says softly, heart constricting. So many feelings, so many thoughts, so many things he wants to say run through his mind at once. He touches Jaebum’s arm lightly as the McDonald’s comes into view and the both of them pull their masks up on their faces in unison. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course not, but I did.” Jaebum pulls up to the brightly illuminated menu and nods his head. “Look that way. Once we get away from the window we should be fine.”

Something in Jinyoung’s heart moves; he’s not sure what. He’s not even sure what the resulting feeling is: he can’t tell if it’s good, or if it’s bad, but he stares at his reflection in the deep black of Jaebum’s tinted window and wonders if maybe something uncomfortable has been just a little bit displaced.

He closes his eyes as Jaebum orders.  _ Just for a few hours. I wish we weren’t famous, just for a few hours. _

If Jaebum senses that something minute has changed about the way Jinyoung is carrying himself, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t put a comforting hand on Jinyoung’s leg and doesn’t whisper anything reassuring to him. Jinyoung wonders if it’s exactly fair to expect him to, but he wants it all the same, and hates the way his heartbeat falters when the window of the restaurant slides open and someone leans out.

“That’ll be 9,750 w—hey! You’re Im Jaebum, that famous director!” 

Jinyoung freezes. He can almost hear the way Jaebum tenses, too, fingers tightening on the wheel. 

The worker must lean back in the window; Jinyoung can’t see that much in the reflection. He hears him shout into the kitchen,

“Hey! That famous director Im Jaebum and some guy are at the window right now!” 

“Yep, that’s me,” Jaebum says coldly, that same voice Jinyoung had been hearing in interviews for years and the one that had been turned on him as soon as he’d arrived on set. It sends goosebumps marching down the length of his covered arms. Jinyoung sees the faint outline of Jaebum hand his card over and lets the guy swipe it.

“Black card, huh? I’m not surprised. Your movies are cool, man.”

Jaebum  _ very  _ much sounds like he’d rather be anywhere but here.  His voice is kind of gruff when he takes the card back and responds. “Thanks.”

From somewhere in the kitchen, a young woman’s voice calls out to the guy working the window: 

“Who’s he with? Is it a guy?” 

“I already said it was!” The guy leans down a little like he’s trying to see into the car better, but in the reflection Jinyoung watches as Jaebum leans forward to block him. “Who’re you with?”

“Is it Park Jinyoung?” the female voice calls, from closer, as though she’s trying to get a better look, too. “There’s rumors about the two of them all over the internet, saying they’re secretly hooking up and stuff. That’d be super hot if it was real, right?”

The guy seems to elbow her. She makes an annoyed noise and hands the male worker their food, which he passes to Jaebum with a little nod. “Is that him?”

Jaebum roughly slams the plastic cup of a strawberry shake into the cupholder and places the bag in his lap, not even bothering handing it to Jinyoung to hold it.

“It’s a cousin from out of town. His father just died and he’s really tired so I’d appreciate it if you could back off a little.”

As much as it discomforted Jinyoung for Jaebum to tell him to face the window to lower their chances of getting caught, there is something about the commanding tone of his voice when he says such an obvious lie. A thrill, wicked, chases down his back and makes him shiver  a little in a way that must make it more convincing: both of the workers apologize profusely and promptly slide the drive-through window shut so that Jaebum can drive off and find a place to park in peace.

“Hey,” Jaebum says softly, when he puts the car into park on the edge of a pool of light from a parking lot lamp. “Jinyoungie. Are you okay?”

He turns his head. He smiles, coyly, letting the feeling he’d had earlier slip away when Jaebum’s warm palm slides up his thigh. “There was something kinda hot about your voice when you lied, hyung.”

Immediately Jaebum starts to blush and he knocks his cap off by the brim, looking away to drink out of his shake.

“I’m serious! Good thinking, but damn, your acting is good. If I didn’t know better,  _ I _ would have never known you were lying.”

Jaebum turns back to him, smiling around his straw. “Didn’t you tell me once that I don’t know anything about acting?” 

“You told me that you don’t need to know how to act to know how to kiss,” Jinyoung reminds him. Jaebum’s cheeks start to pink again and Jinyoung just laughs, digging their fries from the white bag. “Turns out you can do both.”

With an exaggerated bow, Jaebum puts his drink down and helps Jinyoung rip the sides of the bag to turn it into a makeshift table cloth of sorts. They drape it over the large center console of Jaebum’s SUV and dump both boxes of their fries onto it. 

“Ha, ha.” Jaebum feeds him a french fry, smiling fondly as Jinyoung’s lips close around it and he chews happily. “Very funny.”

“Thanks,” Jinyoung says around his fries. “I’m a comedian.”

“Would you ever do comedy?” Jaebum asks suddenly, picking up his shake and slurping from it loudly as Jinyoung ponders the question.

Would he? He’s not sure. Jinyoung thinks that, at the core of them, anyone is capable of anything, but there are certain actors better suited to certain genres. They aren’t limited to those, of course, but he has a hard time picturing himself doing anything  _ funny,  _ or getting into the headspace that comedy requires. Jinyoung’s life so far has been built on the emotions and the experiences that he draws on and so he isn’t quite sure.

“I don’t think so,” he says finally. “I think if I practiced hard enough, I could do it, but I think I’m better suited to drama or thriller. You know?”

Jaebum, listening intently, nods along as he speaks. “Yeah. I think you could do anything, but I think--I don’t know. There’s something so special about the way you act.”

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you like me.”

With a grin and a gentle swipe at Jinyoung’s arm, he settles sideways to watch him as they both pick at the pile of fries between them. “I do, but that’s not it. I’m saying—not a lot of people can do what you do. Anyone can do anything, sure, with the right amount of practice. You could do comedy. You’re funny. But—the emotion that you pull out of yourself, that you pull out of other people—” Jaebum flushes a little and stops. “Not everyone can do that.”

“Aw, hyung,” Jinyoung pats his cheek gently. The motion seems thoughtless, but, on the inside, Jinyoung can feel his past self and his current self pulling themselves apart at such high praise coming from the director (and man) of his dreams. “That means a lot.”

Jaebum catches his wrist and keeps his hand held to his face, leaning into it. He blinks a few times in seriousness before asking,

“Would you want to be in my movies in the future?” 

His heart thumps. He could have never imagined this—in a thousand years, the actor that he’d been when he graduated, when he had first tried breaking into the industry, he could have never imagined being in Im Jaebum’s car and having that same man ask him if he’d ever be in future films like he’s almost afraid Jinyoung would say no.

“Of course. Hyung, I love your movies. As long as there’s a role for me, I’ll do it.” Jinyoung hesitates even as Jaebum smiles and keeps drinking his shake. He pulls his hand back and tucks it between his thighs as he uses the other to pick at their fries. “Would people know about us then?” 

“In the future?” Jaebum swallows the mouthful of shake he has and wipes a hand across his lips. “Yeah. For sure.”

“But not now.”

“Not yet,” Jaebum says cautiously. The both of them are a little quiet as though they both realized they’ve stepped into a minefield. “In the future, of course. But not yet. I’m not—” Jaebum swallows nervously and looks down at his hands. “I’m not ready to share you with the world yet.”

“Hyung…”

Jaebum laughs a little; it’s a bit nervous, but it’s real, too, and he looks up at Jinyoung with something like a forlorn smile. “I’m serious. After what happened to me—it takes time for me to trust people with knowledge about myself. And I just don’t trust the world to let me love you the way I want yet.” 

Jinyoung’s heart, fragile, frantic, beating bird that has become, is hammering away in his chest and in the pulse point of his neck. Jaebum continues to watch him while drinking the last of his shake like he’s waiting for him to formulate an answer, but all Jinyoung hears in his head is the echo of Jaebum’s words.

_ I just don’t trust the world to let me love you the way I want yet. _

The front compartment of the car suddenly feels too small for the wild bursting of his heart.  _ You love me?  _ is what he wants to so badly ask the man sitting across from him, with his messy dark hair and perfectly shaped lips and eyes darker than an unnamed galaxy.  _ You love me?  _ he wants to know, and he wants the answer to be yes; he wants to pull Jaebum forward into him and kiss him until it hurts, whisper back that Jinyoung loves him. That, despite the odds, despite the things they had said, the things they had done to hurt each other, the seeds had been planted on the day they met and no storm could have pulled them from the ground. Jinyoung had been a lost cause the moment their eyes met and he so, so badly wants Jaebum to say it,  _ I love you, Jinyoung,  _ the way that he’s been hearing in his dreams.

But not now. Jinyoung tucks his lips back, tries not to smile, but the roman candle fireworks bursting over and over in the well of his heart set it to swelling. He breaks into a smile so big that it almost hurts and Jaebum, who could have chosen to be suspicious, just mirrors his smile instead. 

“What?” 

“I get it, hyung,” he says, and can see the slightest bit of tension leave Jaebum’s shoulders.  _ So he  _ had _ been worried.  _ Jinyoung feels that feeling inside him grow. “I don’t want to share you, either.”

Fries forgotten, Jaebum plants an elbow in the pile of salt and grips Jinyoung by the neck of his sweater. The bag crinkles under him and some stray fries fall to the floorboards of his car as he pulls Jinyoung forward; Jinyoung frees his hand from between his thighs to grip the back of Jaebum’s head like he had wanted to do so badly earlier in the night. His eyes stay open just long enough to see the way Jaebum’s eyelashes shadow on his cheekbones before he closes his own and melts into Jaebum’s kiss when their lips meet. 

Feeling erupts inside of him. It’s like an avalanche, being with Jaebum; Jaebum’s hand loosens from his collar just to slide to the side of his neck, holding him in place while he deepens the kiss and angles his head. One tiny spark of the feeling of his hands on Jinyoung’s body or the scent of his cologne on his skin or the silky strands of his hair between Jinyoung’s long fingers sends the rest of him blazing. Jaebum makes a desperate little noise in the back of his throat when Jinyoung parts his lips under his tongue and tightens his fingers in the hair at the base of Jaebum’s neck. 

“Jinyoung-ah,” Jaebum murmurs into his mouth, barely pausing long enough to say it, tongue sliding back into his mouth. His other hand cradles the back of Jinyoung’s neck and slides a little into his hair as the kiss ratchets up in intensity. “Jinyoung—”

And even just the way Jaebum pants his name into his mouth like he’s barely holding himself together makes Jinyoung’s body feel like it’s burning. He whimpers and clutches at Jaebum’s hair and fists the material of his jacket at his bicep in his other hand. It’s dizzying, kissing like this, frantic and desperate like the world might be ending. Jaebum’s mouth tastes sweet, addictive, strawberries and salt.

“Hyung,” he breathes, the two of them breaking away for the smallest of moments to look into each other’s eyes and take a deep breath before Jaebum kisses him again, harder, more feverish. The knuckles of his hand clutching at Jaebum’s jacket turn white with the desire to tear it. “Hyung—”

From somewhere near the front side of the car, there’s the brilliant and unmistakable burst of a camera’s flashbulb that goes off and imprints against their eyelids.

They break apart immediately: both of them are breathing hard, lips swollen. Jaebum runs a hand across his mouth before quickly pulling his mask up over his nose and urging Jinyoung to do the same.

“Hyung,” he says shakily, heart hammering in his chest. “You don’t think—”

“I don’t see anyone,” he replies, starting the car. “Look, I parked with the rear of the car to the fence so we could see the whole lot and nothing’s there.”

“That was definitely a camera flash, hyung.” 

Jaebum’s swallow is audible in the silence that follows. He flips the headlights on and pulls quickly out of the parking lot, both of them scouring the bushes lining the sides of it but not seeing anything definitive. There’s a sinking feeling in Jinyoung’s stomach that, despite not seeing anyone, he doesn't think that they both imagined it.

“Maybe it was one of the kids from the restaurant?” Jinyoung says nervously, and Jaebum laughs. It’s a little nervous, too, but it’s real, and Jinyoung feels himself relax just a fraction.

“I hope not. I told that guy you’re my cousin.”

It takes him a minute, but then-- “Oh. Oh, yeah, if that picture got out and the headlines said I was your cousin--” Jinyoung laughs too. “Shit.”

“I don’t know which headline would be worse.”

Jinyoung gasps in mock hurt, jaw dropped. “Hey!” 

“I’m just kidding,” Jaebum says, smiling at him, but Jinyoung can detect the hint of strain at the corners of his eyes. Jinyoung covers Jaebum’s hand with his own where Jaebum puts it on his thigh for comfort.

“Hyung--”

“Maybe it was the traffic camera?” Jaebum wonders out loud, shrugging at Jinyoung when he does the same. “Could have been. Came from that direction, right?”

“Yeah,” Jinyoung agrees, but he doesn't think so. He can tell that Jaebum doesn’t think so either, judging by the way he jiggles his knee and worries his bottom lip between the straight rows of his teeth behind the cotton of his mask.

The rest of the ride home to Jinyoung’s apartment is mostly silent. Jaebum asks if he wants to stay the night with him like he’d promised, but Jinyoung thinks that maybe based on the fact that they  _ might  _ have just gotten their picture taken while they were making out in the car like horny teenagers, it might be best for them to come out of separate buildings in the morning. It’s not perfect, by any means, and if the truth gets out, then it gets out, but… it has to count for something.

Parked in the alley behind Jinyoung’s building again, Jaebum puts the car in park for a minute and sighs with his head dropped against the headrest. Jinyoung blinks at him until he turns to face him.

He pulls his mask down, back underneath his chin. “I’m sorry.”

Jinyoung startles. That’s not what he’d been expecting. “What? Why?”

“For—for our night getting ruined.”

Jinyoung’s heart contracts. How could he have ever been worried even for a moment that Jaebum doesn’t feel the same? That by having him turn his face away, he was ashamed? Jinyoung feels like  _ he  _ should be apologizing, but he just squeezes Jaebum’s thigh instead. 

“Hyung,” he says with a gentle smile, pulling his own mask off so Jaebum can see it. “Our night didn’t get ruined. Not for me, it didn’t.”

He watches the handsome shapes of Jaebum’s eyebrows furrow. “It didn’t?”

“Of course not. I got to spend it with you, anyway. That’s all I could have wanted.”

The tension of Jaebum’s face evens out into a smile of relief. “Good. Mine didn’t get ruined either.” There’s a slight pause; Jaebum’s face changes and Jinyoung kind of frowns. “Although…”

“What?”

The corner of Jaebum’s mouth quirk up into a coy, annoyingly handsome smirk. “I  _ was  _ kind of disappointed we got interrupted. I had this dream about you, once, in the back of my car—”

Jinyoung feels his entire face go red with hot blood. He slaps Jaebum’s chest and tries to hide his face in his shoulder when Jaebum bursts into laughter. “Hyung!”

“I’m just saying!” Jaebum digs his fingers into Jinyoung’s ribs to tickle him a little, laughing when Jinyoung squirms away and pushes him by the wrist. “That dream didn’t come true, so maybe my night  _ did  _ get ruined.”

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Jinyoung makes a face at him and then smiles. “Ha, ha.”

“Hey,” Jaebum murmurs, grabbing Jinyoung by the wrist as he scoots forward and prepares to get out. Jinyoung looks over at him and wants to fall down and die at how soft his expression is, and again when Jaebum puts his knuckles to his mouth. “I like you.”

_ I don’t want to be famous anymore,  _ Jinyoung thinks deliriously.  _ Not if I get to have you like this.  _

He uses Jaebum’s grip on his arm to pull him forward, kissing him quick, short and sweet in a way that leaves Jaebum pouting for more. 

“You’re already gonna get exposed for kissing your cousin once,” he teases, and puts his hand on the door. “But FaceTime me when you get home and maybe I’ll make one of your other dreams come true.”

“One of my other—?” Jaebum pauses, brain working; Jinyoung waits until the realization crosses his face about what exactly Jinyoung is implying and then opens the door. “Hey! You can’t just say that and then get out!” 

Wiggling his eyebrows, Jinyoung hops down to the asphalt and prepares to slam the door. 

“If you don’t wanna miss the previews, I suggest you get going.”

The door shuts between them, Jaebum mostly obscured by the dark tint of the window, but he can just imagine the look on his face. Jinyoung pulls his mask up over his nose and laughs as the tires of Jaebum’s car nearly leave black marks on the pavement. 

In the elevator, he pulls out his phone and sends Jaebum a text when he realizes he hadn’t replied.

_ I like you too, Jaebum hyung.  _

 


End file.
